Anthend
by Renebre
Summary: Chapter 11, the End, uploaded. Harry confronts Voldemort, Ginny sorts things out with Draco.
1. Default Chapter

"When the wine and the song, like the seasons have all gone

AN : Hallo all. Here it is, my new series. I'm not sure how many chapters it's going to be, but I'm working on the second chapter now. This is a romance series, and will revolve around a Draco-Ginny-Harry triangle, with a healthy dose of Ron-Hermione-isms. If you read it, please review it.

Thanks.

Disclaimer : The characters and setting belong to JK Rowling.

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Anthend

"When the wine and the song, like the seasons have all gone."

"Eyeah eyeahhhhh!" Ron yodeled.

Ginny shot him a deadly look. Ron grinned, unabashed. "How on earth can you listen to that drivel?" he demanded. He tossed a Weird Sisters record at her. "That's what you should be listening to." He said piously.

"Ignore him, Ginny, he listens to the Spice Girls at night." Hermione called.

Ginny howled in laughter. "You _don't, _Ron!"

Ron turned a bright red. "The Spice Girls are all right." He defended crossly. "What's wrong with them? They can sing at least -"

"Yeah." Hermione said dryly. "Under a very loose definition of singing. Or perhaps you mean singing without any talent, eh? In that case - "

Ron snatched his record back and glared. "You girls just have no comprehension of the finer meanings of the Spice Girls. Jealousy, that's what I call it. Eh, Harry?"

"I'm not getting dragged into this." Harry replied absently, poring over a crossword puzzle. "What's a word for _poor taste_?"

"Ron?" Ginny suggested innocently.

Harry snorted in laughter. "Sorry, sorry. Loaded question." He went back to poring over the crossword. Ginny sighed and took her mind off her disappointment. After all, at least he knew she was there. That was more than could be said for him usually -

"As I was saying." Ron continued pompously.

"Stuff it, Ron." Ginny told her brother.

Ron looked at her disapprovingly. "Is that what you're learning here?" he asked in offended dignity. "To tell your elders to _stuff it_?"

Hermione flung her quill at Ron, who mockingly pretended to keel over. "Get off it, Ron. Come on, Ginny, let's have a game of checkers."

"My, aren't _we _challenging our intellectual capacities tonight." Ron teased derisively.

Ginny turned bright red, but ignored him. "No thanks, Hermione. I think I'm going to turn in. I have triple period Potions tomorrow, and I want to be rested up for it."

Hermione didn't look overwhelmed with disappointment. Probably wanted some quality time with Ron, Ginny realized guiltily. Harry was there of course, but when he got engrossed in one of his crossword puzzles, there was no dragging him out of it. "All right. What about you Ron? Good night, Ginny."

Ron sniffed delicately. "I _suppose _I could lower myself -"

Ginny heard the throwing of a pillow and Ron's succeeding yowl as she moved up the stairs. She went in her dorm room and found her roommates all asleep. Yawning, Ginny undressed and put on her pajamas, rolling into bed. 

-

Sleep didn't come quite as easily as she had hoped, though. It was one of those stuffy nights where your pillow seemed unbearably hot no matter which way you turned it, and your nightgown stifled and hitched up in bed frustratingly. Recognizing the signs, Ginny got out of bed, hoping that she could go and talk to someone in the common room until she felt sufficiently sleepy.

She dragged herself down the stairs, wide-awake and already aware from the lack of light in the common room that nobody was down there. Nevertheless, she wasn't going to be doing anything up in her room, so she flung herself into a chair and reveled in the absolute darkness sifting against her eyelids. She tried to make out the shapes in the room through the blackness, but she was already so well acquainted with the bulky furniture that it grew boring quickly. Besides, her eyes started to hurt from the strain. Ginny heaved out of the chair and resigned herself to lying in her bed for a few hours more. 

It was when she stood up that she realized the common room portrait was open. Only slightly open, true, but _open_. She wouldn't even have noticed it if a slight movement hadn't caught her eye, so that she whipped her head around to take a closer look. An easy change of light from black to blacker to black again. A figure moving across the corner of the room.

Ginny's heartbeat leapt, she sucked in her breath, and fear took over. She had never been very brave. She was paralyzed for a moment; disjointed fear and suspense trailed icily over her skin, making it taut. She clenched her fists, wanting to run upstairs so badly, and pretend that she'd never seen it. She'd never seen that figure moving across the portrait. It was just one of those things that you scare yourself with in the middle of the night. It wasn't real. _It wasn't real._

But it _was _real.

It was. 

She was alone in the room, and yet not alone. There was _something _in the room with her, or maybe there wasn't. That was the worst part of all, the fact that she didn't know, wasn't sure -

No change in the room, no change at all. The worst thing of all. Nothing concrete, to grab onto and make sure that it was there. No sudden chill, no shift in the air to show something had displaced it -

Nothing at all.

She was very still, afraid to move. The stuffiness of the night, temporarily alleviated by the cool emptiness of the common room, became overwhelming again. She needed to _go_, she really did. She needed to go to the toilet so badly. Ginny squeezed her eyes shut, afraid to have them open, and with each moment that they were closed, her fears grew. Something could easily touch her now, and that was the most fearsome horror of all. Ginny dreaded that cold whisper of a touch against her bare skin. She wished desperately she had worn a long-sleeved nightgown. 

She couldn't bear it, she _couldn't_ -

She uttered a shrill, thin shriek. _No, no no no nononono_, now it _knew _she was here, why hadn't she shouted louder, now it knew, now it knew, nowitknewnowitknew . . .

Fear robbed her breath cruelly for a second, and with each minute she couldn't breathe her heart raced so wildly, making her panic, making her reach out blindly, to get away - only maybe she was moving towards it, she _knew, _she _knew _that it was coming towards her, only a second more, and it would get her -

Ginny screamed. She screamed long and hard, a terrified scream, interspersed with so much terror that it came out a keening, wailing sound.

She felt it, _felt _it, felt it whisper against her bare arm, and then whisk away just as quickly - why wasn't anyone coming?

She dragged in a breath, so scared that it would come back again before someone could hear her, before someone could come down and get her, so scared that the need to pee became worse, she had to hurry, hurry, but she couldn't _move_ -

She screamed again, screamed high, piercing the silence of the night; now she could hear people hurrying down the stairs, scared whispers, the bursting of someone into the common room. _Oh please, switch on the light, please, let it not be there when it's light, please, please pleaseplease -_

The light burst on. Ron was there, in his red dressing gown, hair ruffled wildly, eyes big and scared. Ginny couldn't see anybody else, she couldn't, and she forced her hands upward, crying as she fell, flinging herself forward into his arms. "Ron, Ron, Ron - it was there, it was there Ron, and it touched me it touched me oh God oh God, please help me, please it touched me oh God -"

Ron was bewildered, confused, the fright receding slightly, but still there at the sight of a terrified sister, who was shaking badly in his arms, and crying so hard she couldn't speak, could only cling to him _hard_.

"What's wrong?" Parvati Patil cried out loud, her eyes round and dark. "What happened? Is You-Know-Who here?"

Murmurs began, starting to escalate into loud, agitated voices. Suddenly the portrait swung open fully, revealing a stern-mouthed, flannel-gowned Professor McGonagall, followed swiftly by Dumbledore, clothed in checks. Professor McGonagall's eyes riveted on Ginny's trembling body, and her eyes grew slightly darker in alarm. "What has happened?"

"I don't know." Ron said, hoarsely and helplessly. "We just heard this screaming, so we came down and -"

"We found Ginny standing there, screaming." Hermione finished, more calmly. "We don't know what happened -" She glanced at Harry, whose eyes were wide and confused, filled with concern.

"The portrait was open." Professor McGonagall said sharply. "Who is missing? Quickly! Check amongst yourselves. Prefects, do a head count. Quickly!"

Murmuring, the students looked uneasily at each other, not wanting to look and realize that one of their friends was missing. After a few minutes, Dean, a Prefect, said quickly, 

"No one's missing, Professor."

Professor McGonagall glanced sharply at Dumbledore, who until now had remained quiet. His eyes were unreadable, but his voice was gentle when he said, "In that case, perhaps Miss Weasley should come with us, and the rest of you can go back to your beds."

Ron glanced uncertainly at Ginny, who had calmed down some, but who was still clinging to him, her face frightened. Not wanting to leave her alone, he said uncertainly, "Professor - can I -?"

"I think it would be better for you to go back to bed, Mr. Weasley." Dumbledore said, kindly but firmly. Professor McGonagall went over to Ginny and gently disengaged her arms from Ron. 

"Miss Weasley?" she said, softly. "Are you all right now?"

Ginny swallowed once, trying to clear the awful fuzziness in her throat. Her breath hitched and she dragged in air, swallowing thickly. "Yeah." She whispered, hoarse and shrill at the same time, not wanting to let go of her brother. It was a lie; everyone knew it. 

She looked at him, her face pleading. She was so awfully _alone_, cool air rushing past her bare skin, isolating her from everyone else. She didn't want to look around and see _it _staring back at her, grinning, so she kept her head very still, afraid to move.

"It'll be all right." Ron soothed, his face still half-frightened. He smiled, strained, at her and nodded. "It'll be all right." 

-

Ginny slept through the day, her slumber deep and quiet. When she woke up in the Hospital wing, Ron was sitting by her side, immersed in a Quidditch magazine. She turned slightly, and saw Harry sitting across from her bed, similarly engrossed in a crossword puzzle. Not wanting to disturb them, she lay quietly in bed, relishing the feel of clean white linen against her skin and the warmth of the blanket tucked around her, like an egg in a white nest.

Ron looked up from his magazine and met her eyes. He looked worriedly at her. "Are you all right?"

Ginny smiled at him. "I'm all right."

Harry, who looked up during this exchange, excused himself and melted away so discreetly that Ginny was impressed. He would have made an excellent butler. She was happy to note that he had left his crossword puzzle behind, which obviously meant he was coming back.

Ron leaned on his loosely hinged elbows - Ginny always got a bit alarmed when he swung them around, they might come undone - and surveyed her. "Do you want to tell me what you saw last night?"

Ginny's face remained in the sweet warm afterdaze that always came after a long sleep. "I spoke to McGonagall and Dumbledore about it." She said slowly. "They think it's best that I don't tell anyone what happened." She swallowed, wishing she had some water. "They're going to question the other houses, though, see if anyone is missing or something."

Ron hesitated, obviously wanting to know more. Ginny knew that it wasn't out of mere curiosity; Ron really wanted to know what had scared her so badly. Her heart swelled with the rare loving tenderness that comes when someone has done something unexpectedly sweet. Weasley clannishness. She hugged her brother, a bit awkwardly, because it's hard to hug when you're sitting in bed. "It's all right, Ron." She repeated, echoing his words of the night before. "Really, it's all right."

Harry came back in, carrying a glass of water. "Just went to get some water." He said cheerfully. Ginny was doubly impressed by how well he lied. He walked over and set the glass down on the bedside table. He made no reference to her condition, just went back to his own chair and gave her a friendly nod. Ginny appreciated his tact.

Ron, who had turned beet-red when Harry walked in on their hug, pulled on his collar and cleared his throat crossly. "Well." He said. "Now that you're all right, we'll leave you to get some rest."

Harry looked up and tucked his crossword under his arm. "Of course." He said politely. He rummaged through his bag and handed her a garishly wrapped present, doing it with a surprising amount of poise. Ginny let her eyes rest on Harry for a moment, let a wave of longing, a wave of pure want, wash over her. She wanted this boy badly, wanted him more than anything else in the world. Wanted him to look at her with love, with the kind of tenderness she had seen her father look at her mother with once. 

He was such a gentleman; he'd grown more so over the years, as if to counteract all the violence he'd known. Ginny loved him for that, loved the strong white face, the supremely geeky glasses over the kind, calm green eyes, the short slender-skinny body that could snatch roughly at a Snitch or help you up gently when you fell. 

Ginny smiled at him and accepted the present. "Hermione wrapped it." Ron explained cheerfully. "Harry and I picked out the wrapping paper."

Ginny looked at the wrapping paper, lavishly covered with elves screaming "Get Well Soon!". "It's great." She agreed solemnly.

Harry and Ron looked so proud of themselves that Ginny was glad she hadn't burst their bubble. "We'll go now." Harry said. He smiled at her. "Get well soon, funny-face."

Ginny turned red. Harry had started calling her that during the last summer holidays. She sincerely hoped that it was an affectionate endearment and not something to be translated literally. "Yea, I'll try. Thanks for the present."

"I'll see you later." Ron said as they disappeared out the door.

Ginny looked at the present and ripped it open. 

It was a pair of socks. The enclosed card said, "We got Dobby to knit it." Well, that explained the different colours.

Ginny grinned and put the socks on. Then she dropped back onto her pillow and went to sleep. 

-

"After that episode you had, I would have thought that you'd be out for a _week _at least." Colin remarked as he slogged along beside her, constantly shifting the big black camera around his neck. 

"It wasn't that bad." Ginny replied. After repeating that the whole day, she was kind of starting to believe it herself. It was probably just some Slytherin kid on a raid or something.

Ginny shivered involuntarily, remembering the brush of unnaturalness against her skin. 

No, it hadn't been some Slytherin kid.

It hadn't been anything like a wizard.

"Madam Pomfrey thought I could come back today." Ginny went on. "She said there was nothing _physically _wrong with me. And there isn't."

"Not anything that wasn't there before, anyway." Colin smirked.

Ginny scowled. "What did you just say, boy?"

Colin grinned. "Nothing, nothing. Hey, I've got to drop off at the darkroom for a minute. 

I'll meet you at the common room, all right?"

Ginny nodded automatically. She watched for a minute as Colin jogged down the corridor, his small wiry body moving swiftly along the large, solid stone walls. She turned and headed down the opposite corridor. She had to do loads of homework; Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, Potions -

Fricking hell. Potions. She'd left her potions kit in the dungeons. Ginny scowled in the dark and turned again, heading down the stairwell, automatically avoiding the trick step three steps from the top. She'd just grab the kit and head back up. She tried to remember the Gryffindor password. 

She went into the Potions classroom and spotted it. It was lying innocently on her desk. She wondered why she had forgotten it in the first place. She couldn't remember, but it probably had something to do with the fact that she'd been avidly listening to Hannah's account of how Seamus Finnigan had been found snogging with a _Slytherin_. Gross.

Ginny tucked her kit into her bag and headed back out. Halfway back to the stairwell, she stopped abruptly, shivering uneasily. It was _cold _down in the dungeons, and dark. The torches flickered unsteadily on the walls. She glanced around her, almost involuntarily. There wasn't anybody down there with her, was there?

No, nobody. And maybe that was the problem. 

Ginny abruptly began running, her breath coming in short, whiny pants that sounded unbearably loud. She had to quiet down, she _had _to, but to do that, she had to stop and catch her breath, and then _it _would get her -

Her blood ran cold. _It _was back, she could feel it, but she couldn't hear anything over the loudness of her breathing and the heartbeat pounding relentlessly against her eardrums and the burning of her soles. She slammed into the stairwell door, flinging it shut behind her, terrified when it bounced open again from the force of her hand. She flung herself up the stairs, scrabbling against the slickness of the floors. She had to get away, she had to, she had to -

Her foot jammed brutally. She jolted forward and was jerked backward, her foot wrenching painfully in the ground. Ginny sobbed, unaware of the tears running down her face. She yanked roughly on her foot, her hands on her thigh, pulling, straining -

It was getting closer, and her foot hurt so badly -

The door at the top of the stairwell opened and Ginny shrieked. She couldn't speak for a moment, her breath whining out of her, dragging it back in.

Strong hands helped her gently out of the trick step, and lifted her out of the stairwell. 

Ginny blinked at the harsh light of the main corridor, so bright after the darkness of the dungeons. Her eyes stung, grateful tears coming to ease the sting. _Harry_, her heart breathed.

"Malfoy." Her mind said.

Draco Malfoy set her on the ground, keeping her weight off her foot as he looked at her through those unreadable gray eyes. They didn't speak as he helped her to Madam Pomfrey's room, and only when Madam Pomfrey was bustling to help her did he whisper in her ear, soft and lightly mocking.

"Careful, Weasley. Next time I might not be around." 


	2. Rude White Knights

"She's in the infirmary again

AN : I haven't got much to say, so I'll make this short. The meaning of the title will become clear in one of the forthcoming chapters, so bear with me. Thank you oodles to the people who reviewed the last chapter. A big HUGE thanks to my woefully unappreciated beta-er, **Static**. (!) If you read this, please review it. 

Thanks. 

Rating : PG-13

Disclaimer : All characters and setting belong to JK Rowling.

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Chapter Two - Rude White Knights

"She's in the infirmary _again_?" Ron yelled.

Colin looked nervously at Ron, then his eyes darted to Harry and Hermione, obviously trying to gauge whether they were as volatile as Ron. "Well - yeah."

Ron stepped forward and held Colin by his robe collars. It was a highly effective move, especially since Colin was only about Ginny's height, which was a head shorter than the lanky Ron. Colin swatted ineffectually at Ron's hands. "Hey! Geroff me! I didn't put her in the infirmary, I'm just telling you about it!"

"He's got a point, Ron." Hermione said disapprovingly, trying to pull Ron off Colin. She glared at Harry. "You _could _help me, you know."

Ron's grasp on the smaller boy didn't slacken. "Harry, get Hermione off me."

Harry tugged on Hermione and disengaged her from Ron. "Hang on, Hermione, Ron's not going to hurt Colin." To Ron, he said sharply, "Come on, Ron, let go of him. He's not going to tell you anything this way. Besides, Dean is coming over."

Ron let go of Colin. Colin glared, but he was obviously very relieved. He straightened his collar and said, "I don't know why I should tell you anything! I was just trying to give you the news about Ginny and you bloody pounce on me! You can jolly well get the information from somebody else!" He turned and was about to walk off when Harry grabbed him by the seat of his robes.

"Spit it out, Colin." Harry said impatiently.

"She fell into that trick step next to the Potions classroom and sprained her ankle." Colin said promptly. He glanced nervously at Ron, and whispered to Hermione, "Can I go now?"

"As fast as you can."

Colin scooted. Harry held on to Ron. "Come on, Ron, you can't just go dashing down there bellowing like a mad cow. That's only going to upset Ginny."

"He's right, Ron. The girl just sprained her ankle. She's going to need quiet."

Ron glared, and his face was upset, but he calmed down. "All right. I'm quiet now. Quiet as a fricking mouse."

Harry and Hermione glanced at each other. "A mouse." Hermione repeated dubiously. 

She repeated more firmly, "As quiet as a mouse, all right Ron?"

Ron was already heading out the portrait. "Come on."

Harry and Hermione glanced at each other again. "A mouse, huh?" Harry snorted. 

"Maybe a mouse when Crookshanks has got its paws on it." 

-

"I'm perfectly all right." Ginny insisted. Harry thought that the Weasley family definitely needed some tips on effective lying. Ginny's face was pale and her fingers twisted nervously in her lap. Every few seconds she would glance around jumpily. Her ankle was fine, though, thanks to Madam Pomfrey. 

Ron was clearly very upset. "What were you doing, going down to the Potions classroom in the evening anyway? The place is almost pitch-black at night. You could have broken your neck!" He was standing off to the side, Hermione standing with him. From his vantage point across from Ginny, Harry could see Hermione gripping Ron's hand tightly, restraining him. He felt a pang of envy for Ron, that he had someone to take care of him when he was upset. He looked at Ginny, sitting up in bed, her small face almost blending in with the white pillows propping her up, and had the sudden thought that Ginny needed someone to take care of her as well.

"I forgot my potions kit." Ginny explained tiredly. "I had to go get it so I could do my homework. On the way back up I forgot about the trick step and fell. End of story. It was no big deal, Ron."

But it wasn't the end of story. Harry could tell. Ginny looked tired, yes, but she also looked frightened. If that had been the end of story, then Ginny's hands wouldn't be twitching, and her face wouldn't be so wary. If that had been the end of story, then Ginny wouldn't be looking so unconsciously pleading, and her face would be red with embarrassment instead of white with fear. If that had been the end of story, then his heart wouldn't be slowly filling with dread and he wouldn't be wishing that he could wipe away the last two days so that Ginny was smiling and turning red when he called her funny-face -

But maybe that was a different story.

Hermione intervened then. Harry could see her hand squeezing Ron's tightly, and he could see how Ron edged closer to her unconsciously, as if asking for comfort and knowing it would be given. She didn't intervene out loud, but Harry could read in the touch she gave Ron her asking for him to let it go: Ginny was tired; he could find out about it another time. And he could see Ron's answer in the way he slowly, imperceptibly relaxed his body and allowed the tension to edge from his face. 

"All right." Ron said finally, resigned. "Be more careful next time, all right? And don't go down to the dungeons alone. "

"How did you get back to the infirmary, anyway?" Hermione asked curiously. 

Harry saw Ginny twitch slightly, saw her regain her composure, and saw the nervousness underneath the light tone of voice that didn't go with her pale face and overbright eyes when she said, "Oh! That doesn't matter, does it? After all, the main thing is, I got here." She smiled, a forced smile that came off naturally, slightly skewed; a smile that satisfied her brother.

And Harry wondered what she was hiding.

He wondered what had happened to make him see everything about her, everything that nobody else saw, when he had never done it before.

He wondered many things, as Hermione led Ron out the door, after saying their goodbyes to Ginny.

He wondered even as he shook her ankle gently and said, in a voice he didn't recognize, "Get well soon, funny-face."

And he wondered at the curious beating rhythm of his heart when she smiled at him, a real smile, right before he closed the door softly behind him and followed Ron and Hermione down the hall alone. 

-

Ginny wished she wasn't alone.

She had never minded being alone before.

Ginny forced herself not to glance around the room again. There was nothing in it with her. It was a bright sunny day; cool breeze drifted in from the window. She lay back in bed and closed her eyes and tried to still the irrational beating of her heart, and the anxiousness in her bones that made her want to jump out of bed and run to find the nearest person and cling to them. The anxiousness that told her that she would never be comfortable being alone again because _it _could only get at her when she was alone -

She wondered why she hadn't told anybody about what had really happened down at the dungeons. She should have, she knew, but she didn't want to. It would make it all seem so real, whereas if she didn't tell anyone she could pretend that she had just been stupid and foolish and scared of something that hadn't truly been there. 

But pretending could only take you so far.

And Ginny didn't believe herself anymore.

Ginny heard faint voices floating up to her window and her heartbeat slowed. They would hear her if she screamed. She was safe as long as the window was open and she could hear the noises of wizards outside on the Quidditch pitch. Her breathing relaxed until it was slow and even, and she let herself enjoy the blackness behind her eyelids.

-

Lulled to sleep, Ginny woke with a sudden jerk. Her gaze flew to the window, terrified that she would see black night. She released the bedsheets from her tight fists when she saw that it was still sunny outside, and she could still hear noisy shouts coming from the Quidditch pitch. 

She got out of bed and peered out her door.

Draco Malfoy stood sullenly alone, gripping his right arm with his left. It looked perfectly fine save for a monstrous bruise forming on the elbow bone. He was dressed in Quidditch robes, so he must have gotten hurt on the pitch. 

He was so _different _from Harry, so perfectly different. They were like the colours of their hair; completely opposite: white and black. Harry was the perfect gentleman, a sort of model of boyishness, with his laughing green eyes and easy grin. He was always surrounded by friends, especially Ron and Hermione, and he liked people. It was as simple as that. He _liked _people. 

Draco was so different, in every way. He was heads taller than Harry, with a lean build that was mostly long, strong muscle. His white hair, Harry's black hair. His pale, hooded gray eyes, Harry's open, vibrant green gaze. If Harry liked people, Draco had an undisguised contempt for most wizards and witches that Ginny could recognize, if not understand. If Harry was the perfect gentleman, Draco was most certainly _not_. He was as cruel to witches as he was to wizards and he cared nothing for manners. After all, you didn't need manners when you were so obviously superior to everyone else. Ginny thought that that was probably the Malfoy motto. 

But he hadn't been cruel to her last night. 

He hadn't exactly been kind, either. A kind person would have asked what she was doing down there, why she was doing that down there, if her ankle hurt, and would have stayed with her while Madam Pomfrey was healing her ankle, or would have at least gone to Ron and told him she was in the infirmary. 

He hadn't done any of that.

He had done something better.

He had been there.

Not on purpose, but he had been there.

And that was worth all the cooing in the world.

Well, maybe all the cooing in the world that wasn't from Harry.

Ginny took a deep breath and stepped out into the hallway.

At her slight movement, Draco's head went up. 

It didn't snap up alertly, like Harry's head would have. Instead, it went up languidly, with no alarm or surprise, no curiosity even, simply a sort of acceptance that that was the conventional reaction. 

He saw her and his lip curled in a sneer.

Somehow the sneer was more becoming on him than a smile would have been. A smile simply didn't _fit _with his arrogant boredom. The sneer was part of him, part of his face and the aristocratic airs he put on. 

"Well well." He drawled insolently, taking her in, his hard pale eyes draping over her. _All _of her. "The sick Weasley."

Ginny ignored the insult meant by the tone of his voice and the movement of his eyeballs. 

Her mind was spinning dizzyingly, sending thoughts through her head that she couldn't understand. White knights simply weren't _made _this way, rude and contemptuous; white knights were made like Harry, kind and gentle and sweet -

Ginny regained her balance. "Did you sprain your arm?"

Draco snorted. "What's it to you, Weasley?"

Ginny ignored that as well. "Aren't you going to tell Madam Pomfrey?"

Draco took her in again, as if he couldn't believe her ignorance. He didn't answer.

"Right." Ginny answered herself. "If you weren't going to tell her, why would you be here?"

He didn't say anything, just stared straight ahead at the wall opposite him. 

Ginny took a few steps closer awkwardly, until she was about two feet away from him. "I just wanted to say thanks. You know, for helping me last night."

He didn't say anything to that either.

Uncomfortably warm embarrassment was starting to course through Ginny's limbs. Why wasn't he _saying _anything? "Well, thanks." She said. She winced. It sounded so flippant. She amended quickly, "I mean, thank you."

She stood there for awhile, feeling it would be kind of rude to just walk away from him without a goodbye. And a goodbye seemed so formal. She was beginning to feel kind of awkward. 

Draco finally looked at her. His eyes were hooded, dark and they simply stared at each other for a while. 

Then Madam Pomfrey popped her head out of her potions room. "All right, Mr. Malfoy. You can come in now."

Draco hoisted himself off the wall and turned away from her. Ginny watched as he walked away. 

-

"That's your homework." Colin said cheerfully as he plopped himself into an armchair and a thick sheaf of parchments onto the table. 

Ginny groaned at the look of it. On the top was a Potions sheet. "Write a three-foot essay on the differences between molewort and moleworth, paying special attention to its medicinal properties." She read out. She looked pitifully at Colin. "What's moleworth?"

Colin chomped down on a chocolate frog. "Search me. No one seems to know. Hannah is holding a three to one wager that it doesn't exist and it's really a trick question."

Ginny set it aside and shifted through her other homework. "Look up the only breeding place for black unicorns in England. Write a two-foot essay on the dangers of letting Mandrake acne pus come in contact with polyester-silk hybrids. Research the transfiguration specialties of reptilian mammals found in South Brazil and North Africa." She closed her eyes. 

"I know." Colin said sympathetically. "You can have a look through some of my work, though. Hannah managed to get copies of old Hermione Granger essays."

"Thanks." Ginny muttered. She shoved aside all her work. 

"Swamped with homework, huh?" a laughing voice asked from above her. Ginny looked up to see Harry Potter looking down at her pile of homework. His hair was ruffled, and he smelt of male sweat and almost-fading deodorant. His broomstick was tucked under his arm and he had on his Quidditch robes.

"Yeah." Ginny mumbled. She fervently wished that she could come up with something less mundane to say. Something to catch his attention. Something - well, something _interesting!_ "Good practice?" she offered hopefully. That was a good thing to say, wasn't it? Harry was Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, had been since the year before, when he was still in sixth year.

Harry grinned. "Wicked. You should have seen Seamus dangling off his broom, yelling to the heavens."

"I was not." Seamus muttered as he slumped by, covered in mud. He stopped and looked at Ginny's homework. "I was distracted by the Slytherins." He explained to her. "They came by demanding to use the pitch. No note, no nothing. Harry here didn't want to let them, but Snape came by and did his Snape thing."

Harry scowled. "Greasy bugger demanded we get off. We got them back, though. Seamus managed to get a good hit at Malfoy with the Bludger. Malfoy dropped off his broom like a heavyweight." He slapped hands with Seamus, who was grinning proudly at the memory.

So that was why Draco had gotten his arm sprained. Ginny grinned vaguely, aware that it was her duty as a rip-roaring Gryffindor to cheer on any and all triumphs against the Slytherins. 

Didn't Harry look great in his Quidditch robes? They stuck to his body because of his sweat, positive fodder for a young girl's lecherous fantasies. Ginny found it vaguely disturbing to think of Harry that way. She'd worshipped him for so long that there was a faint suggestion of sacrilege in thinking of him in such earthy terms. 

Seamus moved on, slinging a heavy, sweaty arm around Hermione, eliciting a loud and violent protest from Ron. Seamus laughed out loud, Hermione moved gingerly out from under his arm and Ron reclaimed her possessively. 

Harry made a sudden movement. He grinned at Ginny, who smiled uncertainly back at him. "I'd better go take a shower." He said, as if in explanation.

Ginny giggled - oh, how she hated herself for that schoolgirlish giggle - and smiled and nodded awkwardly. "Of course."

Harry lingered a moment longer, then he turned and moved away abruptly. Ginny watched as he moved swiftly up the stairs to his dorm. She turned back to Colin, who was looking at her knowingly. She suddenly regretted telling him about her crush on Harry. She hated it when he looked at her that way.

"What?" she asked peevishly.

Colin smirked. "Nothing. Nothing at all." 

-

Harry carefully poured some Dragonbreath into his cauldron and stirred it cautiously. It was always wise to be cautious in Potions. He glanced up warily at Snape. Although Snape had mellowed down some during his sixth year, he was still prone to Gryffindorphobia and flying into one of his cold rages for no reason at all. He could see Snape preparing to bear down on Neville, who was slowly and painstakingly pouring his own Dragonbreath into his mixture. So slowly and painstakingly, in fact, that only one drop came out at a time.

Snape bellowed, "Do you think we have all day, Longbottom?"

The Longbottom in question jumped, and Harry winced in sympathy as half his Dragonbreath slopped into the cauldron. He caught the triumphant gleam in Snape's eye as Neville's cauldron imploded and a piece of metal cracked sharply into the stone wall. 

Thick red liquid splattered around the room. Harry narrowly dodged a particularly vicious spurt and instinctively checked to see if Hermione and Ron were all right. He'd gotten more protective of his friends over the past year, especially after Cedric's death.

It was always wise to be protective if you didn't want to grieve.

As far as he could see, no one had been hurt by Neville's accident, which was quite a feat, considering Neville's remarkable attraction to trouble.

"Is everyone all right?" Snape asked coolly.

Harry was prepared for silence, but he wasn't surprised when an equally cool voice drawled out, "I think some of it spilt on my skin, Professor."

Harry was prepared for the satisfied look on Snape's face, and the disgusted, angry look on both Ron and Hermione's. The Gryffindor side of the class turned and glared at Malfoy, who lounged at his desk, so clearly unhurt that it was ludicrous when Snape rapped out smugly, "Fifty points from Gryffindor. Potter, take Malfoy to the Hospital Wing."

Harry stood stonily. He'd learnt that when dealing with Snape and Malfoy, _together, _there wasn't any use being angry. It mostly annoyed them when they couldn't get a rise out of the Gryffindor. Harry always liked annoying them. 

Unfortunately, not as much as he liked screaming at them sometimes.

He walked with Malfoy down the hall in silence. He remarked snidely, "Doesn't look like anything's wrong with your arm now, Malfoul."

Malfoy smirked. "That's the problem with these potions." He replied smoothly, obviously happy that Harry had responded to his little foulness. "It's always so difficult to ascertain the amount of damage they can do."

"I see it didn't do any damage to your bloody lying tongue, Malfoy."

There was a marked pause.

Then Malfoy said something that Harry was definitely not prepared for.

"No - Ginny wouldn't have been very pleased if it had."

Harry stopped in his tracks and faced Malfoy, who didn't stop walking, just kept strolling on as if he hadn't -

"How _dare _you." Harry spat out, grabbing him by the back of his robes and flinging him against the stone wall. Malfoy simply looked at him, still smirking, not making any move to defend himself. Harry felt heated anger climbing up his body. "How _dare _you say something so foul about Ginny!"

About _Ginny_, of all people, about _Ginny_, who hadn't done a thing to harm anyone-

Malfoy kept on smirking his infuriating little smirk. "I'm not saying anything that isn't a fact."

Harry drew back his fist and smashed it into Malfoy's lying face. Blood trickled from his pretty little nose. Harry was breathing hard. "How _dare _you lie about Ginny that way." 

He panted furiously, drawing back his fist again.

Malfoy brought his face closer to Harry, and Harry drew slightly back in revulsion. In that moment, Malfoy twisted and slammed Harry into the wall so that they had reversed positions.

"Jealous, Potter?" Malfoy taunted, his face so close to Harry's that the heat of his breath fell on Harry's parted lips. Malfoy was taller than Harry, so he had to bend slightly, but bend he did. "Jealous?"

Harry wrested himself out of the taller boy's grip and they started to grapple furiously, breath heaving in and out, sweat starting to cling to their skin where they touched. 

Snape came out just then and roared angrily. He dragged them apart and hissed, "Another fifty points from Gryffindor. Detention, Potter. Hospital Wing, Malfoy." He forcibly started to push Malfoy down the corridor.

"You lying piece of shit!" Harry screamed.

Malfoy tugged out of Snape's grip and sneered. "Ask her, Potter. Ask her who helped her that night. Ask her who's the lying piece of shit, me or her."

Snape shoved him forward. Malfoy calmed and tossed out over his shoulder with a semblance of his former insolence in his glittering eyes and unsteady smirk, "Ask her."

-


	3. And Then There Was Cho

Bet you guys thought I was dead or something

Bet you guys thought I was dead or something! I'm sorry it took so long to come out. My computer broke down. Again.=) Anyone like my stories enough to buy me a new one? No? No, I didn't think so. Enjoy anyway. =)

If you read, please review. Thanks – and I love all the lovely reviews so far. 

Thanks to beta reader, the excellent Static, and to the brilliant reviewer JenLynn who cannot get enough accolades from me. 

Summary : Ginny and Draco snarl at each other. 

Rating : PG-13

**And Then There was Cho.**

Ginny was diligently copying Colin's homework when Harry came in. She looked up and allowed her heart to flutter sweetly. He looked so Harryish that she wished that she could get up and throw her arms around him and kiss him and whisper her love for him into his ear. She wished that if she did, he would look at her in that special Harry way of his and whisper his love back to her. 

Ginny sighed, and looked at him wistfully. He looked so _Harry standing there in the doorway, scanning the room, as if looking for someone. If only __she were that someone . . . _

His gaze landed on her, and she allowed herself to hope.

He held her eye and started to walk over. And contrarily, her heart began to thump nervously. 

As he came closer, she realized that he didn't look quite that Harryish after all. His eyes were bright and hot, almost feverish looking, and his hair looked as if it had been soaked with sweat and then had dried into great salty clumps. Not that it looked bad. It looked gross, but it didn't look bad. Nothing looked bad on Harry. 

Well, not to her, anyway. 

He sat down next to her and looked at her work. Ginny shoved Colin's homework under her parchment and smiled weakly. She tried to exude the _I-wasn't-really__-copying vibe as she straightened in her chair, pulled her robe out over her knees, and smiled again. "Hey." She said. _

Harry grinned at her, but he still looked a bit wild around the edges. "Hey, funny-face."

Ginny almost sighed out loud. She wanted to lean into the curve of his arm and kiss him and say, _Hey yourself, green-eyes. _

"Hey." She echoed. She frowned slightly, then stopped. Nothing looked more unattractive than a frown. "Is something wrong? You look a bit - worried." 

Harry shook his head. "Nothing's wrong!" he said. He turned red. "Well. I got into a bit of a fight with Malfoy. The stupid git is -" he stopped. Ginny guessed that he'd been about to curse, then stopped himself. She almost sighed again. What a gentleman. 

"What did you er - quarrel about?" Ginny asked. 

"He was saying foul things." Harry said angrily. "Disgusting things." 

Ginny assumed they had been about Hermione. "Did Ron hear?" she asked worriedly. 

Ron was always so protective of Hermione . . . 

Harry threw her a look. "No, Ron didn't hear." He said slowly. 

"He hates it when Malfoy insults Hermione." Ginny said, almost to herself. "You can't get him to calm down for _ages . . ." _

Harry threw her a startled look. Ginny didn't know what it meant, so she forgot about it. "So." She said lamely, turning bright red. "Are you going off to Quidditch practice?" 

Harry glanced at the grandfather clock that stood stolidly in the corner of the common room and groaned. "Yes, I am." He swung himself off the chair and stood for a moment, looking down at her clumsily. Ginny looked up at him, green eyes meeting. She felt, suddenly, that she wanted to reach up and touch his cheek and soothe away whatever was making him look so troubled . . . 

"I better go." Harry mumbled, giving her a half-grin, turning away. 

He was always turning away from her . . . 

-

Harry cursed himself all the way to the Quidditch field. How could he ever have thought that Ginny - well, Ginny . . . and _Malfoy. He felt deeply ashamed of himself for half-believing Malfoy's lies.__ _

_If they are lies . . . _

Of course they were lies. Ginny would _never hook up with Malfoy. It simply wasn't possible. Not Ginny. He remembered the way she had looked up at him, her eyes soft and smiling, the epitome of girlish innocence. _

He knew that she still had a crush on him, of course. He'd known it for years. He'd never said anything, knowing it would embarrass her, and he didn't want to do that. Not to Ginny. 

Part of him admitted that he liked having this little girl worship him, having her believe that he was a hero who could stop Voldemort single-handedly and then have time for a cup of tea. Part of him liked the fact that she looked up to him, thought that he was almost perfect. 

He supposed that he might have felt the same way about his little sister, if he had had one. He would have shown off to her, bragged about his exploits at school, made her say in reverent tones, "My older brother" and then dismiss her as easily as he dismissed the fact that he hadn't washed his socks in weeks. 

Bitterness surged through him for one brief moment. But he didn't have a little sister. 

He didn't have anyone. 

Harry brushed away the bitterness. He seldom allowed himself to think about Voldemort and what the Dark Lord had stolen from him. If he did, the rage would become unbearable, all the more so because he could do nothing about it. 

Harry reached the field and shaded his eyes, catching his teammates' eyes. He motioned them to go onto the pitch without him, gesturing to his robes to say that he had to change. 

He watched them get up and mount their broomsticks before turning to jog lightly back to the locker room. 

A lone figure in the stands stopped him. He squinted into the bright sky, trying to make out who it was. The figure turned to face him and he blinked, surprised, almost shocked. 

The figure started to come down the stands, feet light and movements graceful. He knew those movements, had dreamed about them at night, fantasized about them in the dark, wanted to fetter them with his touch. 

She reached him, and a smile broke onto her face. She had a very pretty face, he'd always thought so. 

"Hi Harry." She said laughingly. 

He looked at her for a while, measuring his reaction, not allowing her to see that his heart was beating fast, controlling the breath that wanted to heave in and out. Finally he spoke, his voice controlled and quiet. "Hello, Cho."  


-

"_Why are we doing this?" Ginny asked pitifully, moving silently behind Colin, who was creeping along the wall behind Hannah. _

"We're doing this because Snape took a hundred points from Gryffindor and he deserves to be pranked." Hannah replied, peering down at the map she held. She motioned to Colin. "Get a little light on this map, would you?" 

Colin obligingly tipped the torch he held forward, closer to the map. 

Too close. 

The map caught on fire. Ginny slapped at it frantically, trying to put out the surprisingly strong flames. Hannah swatted the parchment at the wall, and it crumbled into black ashes. All three of them stared at the map. 

"Fuck." Hannah swore, staring at it. 

"How are we supposed to do this without a map?' Colin asked, rubbing his hands on his robes, leaving sooty streaks on the cotton. 

"We'll have to do it without." Hannah replied, not losing her enthusiasm for the prank. 

"Look, it won't be that hard. We _kind of know where Snape's chamber is. I think I remember the way." _

"Of course you do." Ginny said darkly. 

Hannah ignored her. 

"Positive thinking, Weasley." Colin told her, eyeing Hannah with some skepticism. "But not too positive." He added, as an afterthought. 

Hannah ignored him as well. "Come on. I'll lead the way." 

"That makes me feel so much better." Ginny said sweetly. 

"Do you still have the potion, Colin?"

"No, I lost it in the fourteen feet we have traveled from our common room. Of course I have it." 

"It was a valid question." Hannah replied, walking forward cautiously. "Now come on, and be quiet." 

They were quiet, following Hannah obediently. Ginny jabbed Colin in the back. "You owe me _big, Creevey. Real big." _

"Don't be so negative. Hannah knows what she's doing. " Ginny didn't miss the slight worry in his glance at Hannah. 

"You're only saying that because you think she's hot." Ginny hissed. 

"And so she is." Colin replied appreciatively. Ginny followed Colin's gaze to Hannah's bouncing backside as the girl trotted down the hall. Colin added, "It's just a prank. And you can't say that Snape doesn't deserve it." 

Ginny gave up and followed in silence. They reached a chamber, and Hannah cautiously pushed the door open, stepping inside. 

A moment later she was out, her face red. "What?" Ginny asked. 

"Not Snape's room." She said briefly, and moved on, stopping briefly. "Don't look inside!" she hissed. 

They followed her, exchanging brief glances. 

They went into Snape's chamber, finally, closing the door behind them so as not to attract a passing teacher's interest. 

"God, this guy is a loser." Colin muttered, flicking an eye over the magazines by the potion teacher's bedside. "He must _really want the Defense Against the Dark Arts job . . . __Defense : New Techniques and Developments, The New Defense Times, Defense Against the Dark Arts Illustrated, Your Guide to Defending Yourself . . ." _

Ginny winced at the sight of Gilderoy Lockhart's face on a dartboard. Two darts rested expertly in both his eyes, and one on his foremost incisor. "He's definitely got issues." She agreed. 

Hannah snapped, "Stop messing around and help me!" 

Ginny tore her eyes away from the picture of Harry on the face of Snape's wall clock. The hands were daggers, so it looked like Harry was being stabbed in different places continuously. "What are you looking for?" 

"Something to put the potion in." Hannah said, still hunting feverishly through Snape's cupboard. 

"You're not going to find it rooting around his underwear drawer." Ginny remarked. She took a look in his bathroom and recoiled immediately. _Foul! She choked out, "In there -" _

Hannah popped her head in the bathroom and her eyes lit up. "You're a true witch, Ginny." 

"I always thought so." Ginny replied. She looked around quickly. "Go on, be a bit quicker about it." 

"Yeah." Colin agreed. "The Snape vibe might rub off on me." 

Hannah unscrewed the lid of mouthwash that lay by the sink. _Double strength! The label proclaimed. __Gargle and swallow, for better breath, every day. She poured the contents of the bottle Colin handed her in swiftly, hastily recapping it. She grinned. _

"Let's go."  


-

"You're _kidding!" Hermione exclaimed. _

Harry didn't look up, staring at the fire. "No." 

Ron whistled. "Well - that's quite a load." 

"What's she doing back?" Hermione asked, her eyes wide. "Didn't she graduate last year?" 

"She did." Harry said, lifting his head. "She's taking a teaching course at The Wizard's Institution for Higher Education, and they sent her back here to do an independent study." 

Ron snuck a look at Harry, trying to gauge his reaction to this. Harry had grown so. . . good at hiding his feelings since Cedric's death. Harry simply looked at the fire, and he couldn't read anything off his best friend's face. It worried him, Harry's quiet moods. 

He knew that Harry had been heavily crushing on Cho when she left. Things might have gone somewhere eventually, if they had had more time. But they hadn't, and had parted vague friends, vague flirtation partners. He had no doubt Cho knew that Harry had liked - _or is it still __likes? - her; everyone had. Even Ginny, and Ginny had a genius for going into denial when it came to Harry. _

"So . . ." Ron trailed enticingly, hoping that Harry would pick up. 

Harry threw him a shrewd look. 

"Do you still . . ." It was Hermione's turn. "Still…you know…_like her?" _

Harry sighed heavily and tried to think. It was hard, as it always had been when Cho was around. But Cho wasn't around now, and he was still having trouble. Did that mean he still liked her? He was kidding himself: of course he did. He liked everything about her, everything except the fact that she didn't like him back. 

That was always the fucking problem. 

"Yes." He said finally, answering Hermione's question. "Yes, I still like her." He could have added, _But I don't want to. It was true. He didn't want to. He'd closed that chapter of his life on her graduation day, and he didn't want it reopened.__ _

_But it's never about what we want. _

Ginny came in then, with her two friends, the clever Hannah and the cheerfully inefficient Colin. Harry welcomed the distraction she brought. She came over to them, giggling with her friends. 

"You'll never guess what we did." Ginny told her brother, her face flushed. 

"What?" Harry asked. 

Hannah grinned. "We put Polyjuice Potion into Snape's mouthwash." 

"You're _kidding." Hermione said, for the second time in five minutes. "Who's he going to turn into?" _

Hannah howled with laughter. "Dobby." 

Harry looked at Ron and they both burst into laughter. Picturing Snape as the diminutive house-elf was hilarious. 

When Ron stopped laughing, he regained his composure and remembered his elder brother role. "Ginny! You're going to get into a lot of trouble -" 

"He'll never know." Ginny assured him, hurriedly backing away. "Come on, Colin, let's go." 

Before Ron could issue a lecture, Ginny and her friends had disappeared. Harry had to grin, faintly, at Ginny's adroitness at avoiding issues she didn't want to face. The grin faded from his face when he thought, suddenly of Ginny finding out that Cho had come back - 

The thought disturbed him.  


-

Ginny found out the next day. 

She stopped Ron at the mouth of the Gryffindor common room. Ron was busy tying his shoelace, so at first he didn't see her face. 

"Ron, why is Cho back?" 

Ron looked up straight away, sensing trouble. One look at Ginny's expression and he winced. 

"Ginny -" 

"Why is she back?" 

Ron knew that when Ginny was in this sort of mood it was better just to give her what she wanted. _But she wants Harry. He couldn't give her that, and a part of him felt heavy regret that he couldn't give his little sister the thing she had wanted so badly since her first year at Hogwarts. So he gave her what he could give, the straight answer she needed._

"She's doing an independent study." 

Ginny looked at him for a while longer, and took in his troubled face. She smiled faintly at this brother of hers. The smile seemed to reassure him, and she was glad. "Don't look so tragic, Ron." She wanted to say, but knew that would be throwing his sympathy back in his face. Rudely. So she simply said, "All right." She motioned for him to go in without her, which he did. 

Ginny wandered down the Hogwarts halls, wallowing in self-pity. Cho Chang was back, that was all right. It was all right that she was older and more sophisticated and had shiny black hair and bright eyes. It was all right that Harry had been crushing on her since year four, it was even all right that he was probably going to resume crushing on her. 

Everything was fucking all right. 

Ginny took a silent breath and brushed away the stinging tears that doused her eyes. She leaned against a wall, and rubbed her eyes furiously. She _loved Harry, and because she did, it was all right that he loved someone else.__ _

_No, it's not. _

Who was she kidding? She was as selfish as anyone else, and she wanted Harry all to herself, and she wanted Cho Chang to do her independent study somewhere else. Bulgaria was nice at this time of year. She wanted so many things, and lately she'd allowed herself to hope - _as I've always hoped - to hope without feeling the vague sense of guilt and despair she had had when Cho was still a student. And now -__ _

_Fucking Cho fucking Chang. _

Ginny gulped back a sob, and pressed her palms against her eyes desperately. She wanted the tears to stop; she wanted her heart to stop telling her that she loved Harry; she wanted so many things - 

"Don't tell me you're sobbing over _Potter." A disgusted voice said. _

Ginny slashed her hands across her cheeks and looked straight into Draco Malfoy's gray-eyed gaze._ _

_Such beautiful eyes. _

They were beautiful - cold, it was true, but that only enhanced their clear, cleanly cut grayness. She wanted to glare at him, but she couldn't, she was too lost in her own anguish to care about hating Malfoy. She lowered her eyes and burst out crying again. 

She heard an obnoxious, fed-up snort, and felt the slight thump as Malfoy slumped against the wall next to her. 

She could feel his mocking before he started in. 

"This wouldn't happen to be about a black-haired Ravenclaw, would it?" he paused, as if to savor the rightness of his taunt, then added, "Because if it is, you're correct to be crying. Potter will go back to ignoring you and drooling over her . . . " 

Ginny shoved herself off the wall, tears still coming down her cheeks, her misery making her face tired and wet. "Leave me alone, Malfoy." She said quietly. 

Malfoy just laughed, and came off the wall, leaning over her, his lean frame making swift shadows on the wall behind him, shadows that stretched down the corridor. "Do you _really want me to?" he teased mockingly, cruelly. "I mean, Potter's not going to want you around - " _

Ginny slapped him, her hand ringing from the unexpected pain. 

Malfoy just laughed harder. He didn't look shocked, his head didn't move, there was only a slight reddening of his pale cheek. "Well, my mother always said that if a girl slaps you, kiss her." He remarked, before shoving his hand out and grabbing her chin, holding it roughly in place as his mouth came down hard on hers. 

He kissed her. 

An overwhelming sense of loss - _my first kiss is for Harry. _

Humiliation - _I hate you. _

Pain - _He's strong. _

A melding of life's breath. _I know you - I know who you are - _

He thrust her chin away from him, breathing hard, his gray eyes hot. 

Ginny could only stare at him, trembling. _I know you._


	4. When Soap Operas Come to Life

Prequel

AN: Hallo! Here is Chapter Four. I know, I know, I'm not a Cho/Harry shipper myself – but hang in there! There are many incomprehensible plot twists yet to come . . . . No, seriously. This chapter was beta read by Static (bet you wish she was _your _beta reader…nyaya) as always. =) This chapter is dedicated to the absolutely gorgeous James Marsden.

** **

Chapter Four : When Soap Operas Come To Life 

"Hey Ginny!' Colin called out gaily from where he was in the corner with Hannah. He grinned chummily at her. "Where've you been?"

"Places." Ginny mumbled, moving over. "What are you two doing?"

Colin gave her a wicked look, which Ginny took to interpret as - _Well, Hannah's looking at her parchment, so I'm looking at her cleavage. Hannah was wearing her night clothes, and looked both sleepy and sensual, always a potent combination. Ginny admired her easy air of seductiveness, confidence in her own sex appeal. Ginny admired a lot of things about Hannah. Paradoxically, she also resented Hannah for those very same things. Or maybe not so paradoxically. _

"I'm going up to bed." Ginny mumbled again, running a tired hand through her equally tired curls. They were limp and fagged out, much like her. "I'm exhausted."

"All right." Colin said cheerfully. Ginny didn't mistake the lack of disappointment in Colin's voice. She forgave him. He lusted after Hannah, and that was always a justifying factor, especially in sixteen-year old boys who held book bags in front of their waists. 

Hannah looked up and took her in. Ginny knew that Hannah rarely missed anything, and she didn't miss anything now, her sharp eyes taking in the untidy red mop and the over-red lips. Luckily - and Ginny was grateful - Hannah also knew when to hold her tongue, and recognized that this was one of those times. Ginny left them and went upstairs to her dorm.

It was not empty, and Ginny was glad. She disliked being alone, especially recently. There were too many things around when you were alone, and she didn't care that that was an illogical thought.

Logic couldn't explain everything.

Like why she'd spent a full five minutes making out with Draco Malfoy, until he'd shoved her away from him and she had jerked backwards. He'd left without a backward glance, without a word, which Ginny thought was pretty rude, since he'd been the recipient of her first kiss.

Or maybe _thief was a better word . . ._

Ginny let herself fall onto her bed, almost groaning with satisfaction at the exquisite pain that came with relaxing tense limbs. She stared up at the ceiling, at the wind chimes that she'd hung over her bed. It annoyed her dorm mates, unreasonably so, but Ginny had pointed out that they were no worse than the glow-in-the-dark Gilderoy Lockhart poster and the monstrosity of an urn Peggy and Laney had. They'd shut up - or at least stopped threatening to shove the noisy chimes down her throat.

The chimes tinkled lightly above her, from the slight breeze that came in the half-open window. Peggy swore that night air was the best kind of air, never mind that she always slept through it and therefore wouldn't know. For the sake of peace, Laney had assented, and Ginny, who had no opinion, had likewise raised no objections.

Ginny closed her eyes and tried to focus on the unreal blackness behind her lids. 

It worked for a while, then she was asleep and dreaming of a boy whose hair was anything but black . . .   
  


-

"Hey Harry." Cho called out cheerfully as Harry walked onto the Quidditch field. 

Harry glanced up and waved at her, a half-smile on his face, never mind the fact that he had been completely exhausted the minute before. He'd stayed up the whole night for reasons he didn't want to think about, and had been subjected to two hours of Hell i.e Double Potions first thing in the morning. Then had come a harrowing hour with Hagrid, who had shipped in a few creatures that Harry suspected had dragon roots in their ancestry. Fairly recent ancestry. He'd almost fallen asleep at lunch - would have, in fact, if not for a black-haired girl laughing with Justin at the Hufflepuff table. Harry didn't have anything against Justin, he really didn't.

Not when he wasn't flirting - successfully - with _his -_

Harry resolutely stopped that train of thought. He didn't glance up at Cho again. 

When Quidditch practice was over, Harry collapsed on the bleachers, utterly drained of energy. Dean, the new Keeper, flashed a grin down at him and walked on. A few of his teammates gathered around him. From their expressions, Harry surmised that they were as tired as he. He'd almost forgotten about Cho's presence in the bleachers.

Almost.

She came skipping lightly down to him, never losing the grace that came with being confident and mature. Harry almost resented her for looking so fresh, and at the same time admired her air. He admired many things about her.

That was his problem.

"Good practice." Cho told him, brushing a straight lock of hair out of her eyes. "I've never seen the Gryffindor team look so good."

"Gonna report straight to the Hufflepuffs, huh?" Harry grunted teasingly.

Cho's eyes twinkled, and Harry couldn't stop from staring. She had pretty eyes, large and dark, and he liked them. "Straight away." She replied dryly, and Harry couldn't tell if she was joking. She intrigued him. 

They sat in silence for a while, and one by one the other members of the Quidditch team drifted into the locker room. Harry remained. He wanted to be alone with Cho, and knew that his teammates knew it too. His crush on her had never been a secret.

"How are you finding being back at Hogwarts?" Harry asked idly, taking off his glasses to wipe the sweat off them. 

"Good. Different." Cho smiled. "I'm not a student anymore, so it's different. Very much so."

"Your study going well?"

"Excellently." Cho said, and Harry got the feeling she didn't want to talk about it.

He let it go; he understood secrets. He wasn't offended - not many things offended him. Not when Cho was involved. He got up and offered a hand. 

She pulled on his hand. Harry looked down at her - he wasn't tall, but she was short - into the dark eyes he liked so much. The words came out of his mouth; he didn't know who put them there. It certainly wasn't him. "Doing anything tonight?"

Cho grinned, a wicked grin, full of seductive promises and soft kisses. "I'm looking at the stars with you, Harry."   
  


-

Ginny tromped down the hall gaily, only half-listening to Colin. He was telling her and Hannah about a piece of gossip he'd heard from Pansy Parkinson. Ginny would have asked him what he was doing talking to Pansy Parkinson, if she hadn't thought that he was throwing in her name to make Hannah jealous. Pansy was prettier now, if not exactly pretty, and she was older, too, always something that made sixteen-year old males pant. 

Ginny could have told him that Hannah couldn't have cared less. The blonde was too aware of her own sex appeal to feel intimidated by another's. 

Ginny was in a good mood. She had half-managed to forget her . . . _indiscretion with Malfoy, and was concentrating on better things. Like Harry Potter. In her current mood, she was convinced that Harry couldn't possibly like Cho again. It just wasn't fair, not to her. She wasn't concerned about Cho. Anyone who had a wealth of dark hair and sexy dark eyes didn't need fairness._

She saw that Hannah was putting up a good pretense of listening to Colin. Ginny allowed her own thoughts to wander. 

They passed Malfoy in the hall. Ginny awkwardly pretended to be looking down, her heart beating faster, nervously. She needn't have bothered. Malfoy had his usual bored air about him, and didn't give them a passing glance. Not that she cared.

Really.

They walked into the Gryffindor wing, Colin still prattling on about some Hufflepuff being found in bed with a Ravenclaw. Those Ravenclaw girls, Ginny thought . . .

She didn't finish her thought.

She didn't need to.

It was being played out before her.

In front of the Fat Lady, who was knitting placidly, Harry stood, sweaty and sexy from Quidditch practice.

In front of the Fat Lady, who was knitting placidly, Cho stood, cool and sexy, from being Cho Chang.

It was only natural that they should be standing together.

Kissing.

Ginny clenched her fists around her robe, until her knuckles turned white and her palms an angry, hurting red.

But she wasn't angry.

Colin and Hannah caught sight of the two figures who were doing an excellent imitation of being statues. 

Lips glued to each other.

Hands plastered to each other's hips.

His sweat becoming hers.

Ginny thought she caught a glimpse of tongue and was nearly sick.

Colin shut up, glancing quickly and worriedly at her. 

Ginny's lips were tight and tense, her heart still in her chest.

She had to keep it still.

Hannah broke the tension the couple was unaware of by saying quickly to the Fat Lady, 

"Potions is for losers."

The portrait swung open, dislodging the couple, who were shoved out of the way. They broke apart - no, that was too harsh a word. They melted apart, their faces soft and flushed from their strenuous activity.

Hannah climbed in and beckoned to Ginny. 

Ginny moved forward numbly, not looking at Harry.

Colin went in after her. As the portrait swung open, Ginny caught a glimpse of Harry's face. He knew she liked him, and she knew he knew. 

Ginny turned away.   
  


-

"Dammit." Harry swore, running a hand through his hair.

Cho raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

Harry didn't play with words. Events had taught him to be honest - well, except to Snape and anyone who was trying to kill him - and the lesson was deeply ingrained in him, so much so that he didn't hesitate to tell her the truth. "Ginny has a crush on me."

Cho smiled. "Oh."

Harry couldn't help grinning sheepishly at her knowing look, then wiped the grin off his face, knowing it was disrespectful to Ginny. "Yes, oh. Look, I'd better go straighten this out."

"Why?' Cho asked, raising her eyebrow again. It looked unbelievably sexy. Harry wanted to grab her and kiss her again, but restrained himself. "It's not like you two are together. You have every right to be kissing - " she leaned closer, her words husky and breathy. "- _me."_

"I know." Harry put his hands together, rubbing nervously. "But she's my best friend's sister, and I like her. _No, not in that way. She's like __my sister, and I don't want to hurt her."_

"All right." Cho said agreeably. She grinned at him again. "But don't forget our date later."

"Never." Harry said, half-jokingly.

But only half.

Cho waved as she walked off down the hall, and Harry allowed himself a moment to admire the sway of her hips before stepping into the Gryffindor common room.

He cast a glance around for Ginny. He didn't expect her to be there, and she wasn't. Her two friends were subduedly playing cards in the corner, their movements quiet. They were acting like someone had died. Harry resented that.

He moved up to the dorms, finding Ginny's room easily. The door was slightly ajar, and Harry paused, half-expecting to hear sobs. He was relieved to hear nothing, and went in quietly, knocking softly on the door.

Ginny was sitting at her desk, looking down at her hands. She was bent over the table, her posture one that spoke of unbearable weariness. She didn't look up when he entered, feeling awkward.

"Funny-face." He said.

Ginny flinched slightly. "Please don't call me that." She said politely, as if she was speaking to a stranger. A chill ran down Harry's spine. He went to her slowly, as if she would flee if he made any sudden movements.

"Why not?" he asked, knowing perfectly well why not.

Ginny didn't look at him. "You know why not."

Harry went over to her, taking her hands, wanting her to look at him. She avoided his eyes, tugging uselessly at her hands. "Look at me, Ginny."

She didn't.

"I know you have a crush on me." Harry said, stating a fact they both knew. "I know you've liked me for a while."

"Yes." Ginny said, her voice quiet. "I have."

"So it must have come as kind of a shock to see me with Cho." He took a breath. 

"Especially as you did. I'm sorry that you had to see it. It was stupid of me to do - that - in front of the common room. It was stupid and insensitive of me, and I'm sorry."

He went on, struggling, knowing he had to say the next words, and wishing he didn't. 

"But I'm not sorry I kissed her."

"I know." Ginny whispered, closing her eyes briefly. 

"I'm sorry if I hurt you." Harry said, meaning it, wishing he never had, and knowing that he had. "You're like my little sister, Ginny - you _are my little sister, to me."_

_ _

_You're not my brother. _

"I love you, Ginny." He whispered, still holding her hands gently. "And if it's not in the way you want me to, I'm sorry. But it's just a crush, and you'll get over it." He knelt by her, and tried to look up into her eyes. "And when you do, you'll see that it's best this way." He smiled. "Can you imagine what Ron would say if I told him I liked you?"

"I can imagine many things."

Harry stood, and when he did, Ginny finally looked at him. Her eyes were dark and shuttered, but Harry was glad to see that there were no tears. He didn't allow himself to think that the quiet, empty statement in them was worse than any tears would have been.


	5. Curses And Cho

AN : Hallo, here I am with the fifth chapter

AN : Hallo, here I am with the fifth chapter. Didn't make you wait too long this time, now, did I? =) I have to say at this point, that I have realized how nice some of you are, reviewing every chapter; some names jump up, like Nettie, Ayleeandra, Tessie, spy_angel, *~*Ginny*~*, and a few others. I do appreciate every review (especially the long ones – lol – aren't I a slut for feedback) and at the end of the series, I definitely will write up a thank you list. =) Just wanted to let you know because I realize I've been singling people out. Unfair of me. 

This chapter is dedicated to the gorgeous male specimen who is Ian Thorpe.

Disclaimer : Characters and setting belong to JK Rowling.

Onwards!

**Chapter Five : Curses and Cho**

Ginny slunk into the Great Hall, morbidly hyperaware of every whisper and glance that wasn't directed at her. She was glad that Colin was with her, and even gladder that Hannah, with her fiery eyes and no-nonsense attitude was with her. Hannah, with her proud posture and lofty head never invited pitying glances.

She caught sight of Harry almost right away. He was sitting with Ron and Hermione - as usual - and was laughing, ostensibly at something Hermione had said. Hermione was grinning broadly, a change from her usual disapproving scowl, and Ron was happily shoveling baked beans and heavily buttered bread into his mouth. She forced her glance away, almost painfully, and sat down with Hannah and Colin. 

She was grateful that Harry didn't look up and see her. She glanced back at him, compulsively, his head thrown back, his hair messy and sticking straight out, his green eyes bright behind the round frames of his glasses.He looked so happy that Ginny felt a painful lurch somewhere in her chest. She wished, suddenly, that she could be happy because he was happy.

But she wasn't.

Ginny turned her gaze to the Ravenclaw tables. Cho sat by herself, but she looked so confident and self-sufficient that she didn't come across as being alone. Ginny knew that if she had been in the same position, she would have been horribly aware of every look darted her way, as if everyone was thinking, _What a loser. _

Ginny kept on looking at Cho, as if trying to find something - _other than beauty, sex appeal and Cho-ness - the other girl had that she didn't. Something to catch a young man's heart and keep it. Something -_

Something . . .

A myriad of emotions swept over Ginny. Not so much jealousy than something else, something almost indefinable, a painful, desperate _need to have what Cho had._

Harry Potter.

The two words always stirred something in Ginny. _Harry Potter. A name she'd grown up with, revered, even. A name that had been just that, a name, until she had seen him in his first year at Hogwarts, getting on the train. A name that had slowly formed into a real person, real but somehow __not, a hero who burped and drank too much pumpkin juice and had peeing contests with Ron (she'd come across them once) and was nice to her. A name that had, as she grew to know him better, ceased to be the name of a hero and had just become the name of the boy she loved. _

_ _

_Harry Potter. _

The name of the boy who had kissed another girl.

_ _

_Harry Potter._

The name of a boy who wasn't perfect, and who didn't love her.

_ _

_Harry Potter._

_ _

_Ha-fucking-rry. Po-fucking-tter._

_ _

_Harry fucking Potter._

_ _

_HarryfuckingPotter._

Ginny slowly became aware of the low murmur of Colin and Hannah over the baked beans. She listened halfheartedly, not really taking interest.

There was only one thing that would interest her now.

And he was getting up and making his way over to the Ravenclaw table.   
  


_-_

_ _

_Look at her. _

Draco sneered, inwardly and outwardly, as he watched the female Weasley brood over her breakfast, her eyes pathetically turning towards Potter's radiant face - _radiant like a pile of Skrewt dung - like a bloody blooming sunflower to the sun. It made him ill, it really did. The whole melodrama - narrated to him avidly by one Pansy Parkinson - was like a bloody soap opera without the benefit of skimpy clothing. Weasley loves Heroic Harry. Heroic Harry lusts after black-haired siren. Weasley catches Heroic Harry and Evil Seductress - from Ravenclaw - in a romantic clinch. Weasley runs off sobbing her little heart out. Heroic Harry runs after her - after exchanging one last kiss with Evil Seductress - to save the day. _

What was going to happen next?

Golly gee, he was just going to hold his breath with fascination till the next installment of _Lord Harry's Scandalous Affairs (gasp!) came out._

Draco rather liked that. _Lord Harry's Scandalous Affairs. It had a poetic ring to it. _

He turned his contemptuous thoughts back to Weasley. She was half-listening to her little loser friends' conversation, her eyes slightly glazed - oh my! With _tears, no less - as she watched Hunky Harry lean over Cho and exchange a few words which left Cho smiling like the proverbial Skrewt that ate the rabbit and Harry looking more __radiant than ever. _

Draco almost rolled his eyes, but caught himself in time. He turned back to the stimulating conversation that Crabbe and Goyle were having. Crabbe was busily shoving beef and beans into his mouth, the living picture of what his ancestors must have looked like before the invention of knives, forks, and other eating utensils. Goyle was grunting into his orange juice while thumping his meaty, sweaty, fleshy hand on the table with energy, if not brain power. 

Draco watched the Weasley jump up and skitter out of the Great Hall. Harry's attention was caught by this, and he looked up. Draco sniffed the air in anticipation as Harry scuttled out after the redhead. 

_ _

_I smell confrontation. _

Draco stood up, his light eyes reflecting the perverse enjoyment he got from this. Lord Harry's Scandalous Affairs, hmm? Maybe Lord Harry and the Evil Villain?

He'd work on an appropriate title later. Now he had a cauldron of thick, delicious tension to wade into, and hopefully stir up.

Draco almost rubbed his hands together in glee.   
  


-

Ginny leaned against the wall, taking in deep breaths, trying to suffocate the sobs welling up in her throat.

She'd thought she could handle it, she really had.

She'd been wrong.

_ _

_I was wrong about a bloody lot of things, wasn't I?_

She didn't look up to see Harry come out of the Hall towards her, but she heard him, heard the slight panting breaths that seemed somehow incongruous with the athlete she saw on the Quidditch pitch. The one who could do three loop-de-loops in the air and lunge effortlessly between the speeding Chasers without breaking a sweat. The one who could make her heart jump and her palms sticky whenever he did that little thing where his thighs gripped his Firebolt tightly and his strong hands snatched the Snitch from the air. 

_ _

_My Harry, her heart sighed._

_ _

_Cho's Harry, reality insisted._

She heard Harry step closer, then stop uncertainly a few feet away. "Ginny?" he said, as uncertain as his footfall had been.

Ginny looked up, after blinking away the salt water that would erode her pride and activate Harry's guilt. She didn't want him that way, not with guilt.

_ _

_Liar._

She'd take him any way she could.

But guilt would only make him stay with her for a while . . .

And she needed him for longer than that.

"Yeah?" She asked, her voice slightly louder than she had wanted. She wouldn't make this easy for him.

Even if she loved him.

"Are you - all right?"

Ginny looked at him for a moment, knowing her silence was betraying the pride she desperately wanted to keep. But she couldn't bring herself to speak, couldn't bring herself to say the words that would exonerate him from any obligation towards her, because she wanted him so badly, even if it was just for these few minutes . . .

Even if he went back to Cho . . .

A new voice broke the silence. Ginny looked up, startled, to see a long, lean figure rest his shoulder against the wall, the darkness absorbed, not reflected, in the white-blond hair that made him look like the black devil he was. 

"Yes, she's all right." He replied in answer to Harry's question. "Not that it's any of _your business, Potter." He made __Potter sound like __Poop._

Harry swung around, his defenses immediately going up, as they always did when he was confronted with the slimy git. Ginny could see his muscles tense under the black robes - hell, she could practically see his _hair bristle in indignation. "Stay the hell out of this, Malfoy," he almost growled._

"I hardly think that you're in any position to be saying that to me." Malfoy practically oozed smoothness. Ginny almost admired the slimy way Malfoy knew how to get under Harry's skin, the exact buttons to push with his paws. 

"What the hell does that mean?" Harry spat, not backing away as Malfoy came off the wall in one fluid, graceful move. "Never mind, I don't want to know. Stay out of this."

"Let me guess." Malfoy drawled. "This is between Ginny and you." He brought his face sharply against Harry's, almost rubbing his cheek against Harry's. "Wrong." Malfoy said softly, whispering, into Harry's ear. "This involves you. Ginny. Cho. Me."

Harry said nothing, simply stared at Malfoy with undiluted loathing. Ginny realized with a start that he looked almost exactly like Snape, then, and a prickle raced down her spine. 

"Get out of here, Malfoy." Ginny said quietly, the force behind her words unmistakable. 

Malfoy turned his cool, inscrutable gaze on her then, and Ginny almost flinched from the heavy meaning behind his next words. "Is that how you're going to play it?" he asked.

Ginny hated the way that sounded. It sounded as if she and Malfoy _shared something, and she could tell from Harry's statement as he slowly turned his head towards her that he heard that note too._

"What are you talking about?" she hissed.

Malfoy was facing her in an instant, his long fingers gripping her shoulders, his eyes boring into hers. "What the hell do you _think I'm talking about?" He asked with soft sibilance. "Who found you and walked you to the infirmary? Who the hell do you __think you were kissing two nights ago?"_

He was taunting her, knowing she couldn't deny his words, knowing that if she didn't deny them it would damn her in Harry's eyes. 

Such cool, _knowing gray eyes._

She hated him so much.

"Ginny?"

Doubt in that voice.

She _hated Malfoy._

Everything was very still, waiting for her answer.

She tried to back away, but Malfoy's hands held her in place.

And from somewhere far away, Ginny heard someone say "_Imperio" and suddenly _

Malfoy's arms didn't seem that strong.   
  


-

Harry watched Ginny, waiting for her answer, tense, unwilling to believe Malfoy's lies, or the ring of truth that was in them. Unwilling to think what the statement in Ginny's wide eyes meant.

Then suddenly, almost too fast for him to see, Ginny wrested out of Malfoy's arms and slammed back against the stone wall. Her teeth jarred from the impact, and Harry could see her eyes open in shock. More shock as her head started banging repeatedly against the wall; loud, vicious thumps. Harry stared, unable to do anything, too shocked to move.There was something vaguely familiar about that look on her face. It _looked like she was banging her head against the wall on purpose, but Harry could also see the internal struggle, the faint, strained movements of the head from side to side, as if trying not to do it. _

Something familiar.

And then Harry remembered. 

He remembered his fourth year, being commanded to jump, trying not to obey that voice . . .

_ _

_Imperio._

The Imperius Curse.

It was only when students started coming out of the Hall to see what the commotion was that Harry sprang into action. 

Malfoy was one step ahead of him, already placing his hands on Ginny's head and trying to stop the blows. Harry tried to soften the blows by placing his own hands behind Ginny's head, but all he got for his troubles were two extremely sore hands. 

"What the hell's going on?" Ron shouted, fighting through the crowd.

_ _

_Crucio._

Harry heard the voice, the soft, insidious voice, so soft he could hardly hear it. He jerked around, trying to see who had said it. Then he swung around again, in time to see Ron stiffen in pain and start jerking his arms, flailing them about helplessly.

Harry remembered the pain, the red-hot pain that slashed through your limbs and made you realize that there was nothing more horrible than physical pain -

"Call Dumbledore!" Malfoy growled, his voice loud and commanding. "Call Dumbledore, you fucking idiots!"

Harry saw Hermione wrench herself out of the crowd and start running off, ostensibly in search of Dumbledore.

It was long minutes before Dumbledore appeared, running fast, but his face grim in resolve, calm. He saw him lift his wand, and for the second time Harry saw why Voldemort feared Dumbledore . . .

Before Dumbledore could do anything, though, Ginny went limp on the ground, exhausted, her nose bleeding and the back of her head wet. At the same time, Ron gave one last spasm and flopped on the ground, his eyes glazed.

Dumbledore dispersed the crowd with a flick of his hand - the students scrambled to exit the cramped hallway.

"All right." Dumbledore said grimly. "Get the Weasleys down to the infirmary, you two, and then you can tell me what happened."

-


	6. Redheaded Ruffians, Heroic Harry (ies) a...

"When the wine and the song, like the seasons have all gone

AN : Hello! I'm terribly sorry this took so long to get out - I hate leaving people with cliffhangers because I feel so horrid and guilty. This because I hate being left with a cliffhanger myself. No cliffhanger here, rest easy. This is dedicated to David Boreanez for lending his good looks to the world. =) And to Static - who worried me the whole week - and to the hope that her finals results will be excellent. Now that I've done that, thank you to all the people who have reviewed so far. All your reviews are appreciated.

Rating : PG-13

Disclaimer : JK Rowling owns the following characters and setting. I'm just playing.

**Chapter Six : Redheaded Ruffians, Heroic Harry (ies) and Depraved Draco (es).**

"It was the Imperius curse." Harry said flatly, not looking at Dumbledore. 

"And the Cruciatus curse." Draco said, also not looking at Dumbledore.

"Who performed these curses?"

"Dunno." Harry mumbled. "I didn't see anyone doing it - reckon it could have been almost anyone; they were all crowded around the hall - heard someone saying _Imperio -"_

Harry had to forcibly restrain himself from shuddering. He wasn't going to break down in front of Malfoy, who, to his disgust, looked as cool as ever. He was staring fixedly out the window as if he was bored and wanted more than anything to get out of there. Harry remembered with a start what Malfoy had been saying before the incident –

It seemed so long ago –

"Harry!" Dumbledore said sharply. "Was it a female or a male voice?"

Harry struggled to remember. "It - didn't sound like either, really." He said slowly, recalling the voice. "It sounded like- it just sounded - _amused, you know -"_

Dumbledore got to his feet. Harry watched him and realized that Dumbledore was getting old –

The thought made him faintly uneasy.

"Well, I'll ask the teachers to see what they can find out." Dumbledore. He was staring hard at Harry, as if telling him something. Harry didn't understand, but before he could ask, Dumbledore had left the room.

Leaving him alone with Malfoy.

Without a word, Harry got up as well. He was just exiting the room when Malfoy drawled, "Going to visit her?"

There was no need to ask who the her was. They both knew.

"What's it to you, Malfoy?' Harry asked, hostile, not turning around to look at the bastard. 

"You should know by now." 

Harry nearly spat out his next words. "I know that you're a lying piece of shit."

Malfoy set cool gray eyes on him when he turned around. Such distant, remote eyes, not giving anything away. His words were faintly mocking, lacking the aggression that had accompanied them in his first few years at Hogwarts. Malfoy had learnt that frustration was worse than any other emotion in the world, even anger or heartbreak, and he practiced the art of frustrating people so well that Harry would have marveled at his talent.

If he hadn't hated the slimy _bastard so much. _

"You don't." Malfoy said coolly. "You want to believe that I'm a "lying piece of shit" - as you so eloquently put it, Potter - but you can't be sure. You _want to believe that I was lying and Ginny never touched me - but you __don't."_

"Go to hell." Harry hissed, stomping out the door.

But not before he heard Malfoy laugh.   
  


***

"You are playing with them." 

A rich laugh rang through the air, deep and knowing; the laugh of someone who is unafraid. "So I am." The person said, standing face to face with the wizard who even Harry Potter would have flinched to see.

Lord Voldemort.

"I do not like it."

The person's mouth curved into a smile, revealing straight white teeth, incongruous with the darkness around them. "Don't worry. I will kill Harry in the end. I just want to have a little fun now - "

"With the Weasleys?"

The person smiled again. "You, of all people, my lord, should know that when the supporters fall, nothing is left."

Lord Voldemort's eyes flashed with brief anger at the insolence, the audacity of his servant in referring to his own once-fleeing supporters. It died away and he laughed. "Well said."

"I've put the house-elf under the Imperius curse." 

Lord Voldemort eyed his newest Death Eater. 

The Death Eater looked straight back at him, head thrown back in a superb show of defiance.

And Lord Voldemort laughed again. 

***  
  


"What - is the infirmary like your second home now?" a laughing voice came in the door.

Ginny looked up from the _WitchFashions magazine she was flipping through at the confident young woman in the doorway and the disheveled boy beside her. "Seems like it, doesn't it?' she remarked, holding out her arms to hug the worried Colin. _

"Don't you two have class?"

Hannah's eyes twinkled, but she didn't answer. Ginny forbore to ask.

With Hannah, that was always better.

"We were worried." Colin explained unnecessarily, hurriedly releasing her and staring fixedly at the wall above her head. 

Hannah flung herself into the chair beside Ginny's bed, movements fluid and graceful, looking like a sexy witch with a voracious appetite.

Looking, in fact, like herself.

Ginny yawned and covered it up. "I'm fine. Madam Pomfrey fixed the whole head up. Look." She indicated the back of her head. "She even grew back the hair she had to cut off."

"What was it like?" Hannah asked, her eyes bright. "Being under the Imperius curse, I mean."

Ginny shivered involuntarily. She didn't answer for a while. "Awful." She said, finally, looking down. "I don't want to think about it."

Hannah took the hint. Colin shifted nervously on his feet. "I developed some of the pictures I took at the Feast first day back at school." He offered. "Want to see them?"

Ginny held out a hand. Colin plonked a sheaf of pictures down, and she smiled at the first one. It was the three of them, their mouths full of pumpkin pie. She wondered how Colin had taken the picture.

"A Timer charm." Colin explained, before she could ask. "I learnt it in a photography magazine."

"Aren't _we diligent." Hannah drawled. _

Ginny knew her well enough that she could hear the genuine admiration beneath the mocking words. Unfortunately, Colin was blinded by teenage lust and his face coloured deeply. "I was just flipping through it." He mumbled, not looking at Hannah.

"S_uuure." Hannah said agreeably. Ginny shot her a warning look. Hannah would say something she would later regret, and Colin would brood over it for ages and it would be a while before they got back in sync. It was a cycle Ginny didn't want to see repeated. Hannah raised a black eyebrow but subsided._

"What's been happening in school?" Ginny asked. 

"Loads of homework, of course." Colin groaned.

Ginny grinned. Homework. Colin and Hannah. A wave of fondness swept over her, a wave of familiarity. There was nothing strange or sinister about these two people standing in front of her, not like there was about the Imperius curse, or Draco, or even Harry.

Yes, even Harry. "How's Ron?" Ginny asked.

Hannah rolled her eyes. "Pretending to be weak so that he can enjoy Hermione cooing over him."

Colin nodded sagely. "Wise move." 

***  
  


"I'm perfectly fine!" Ron insisted, as Hermione fluffed - or attempted to fluff up his pillows. He scowled ferociously. "The only thing wrong with me is that I don't know who put a curse on me!"

"Hush, Ron." Hermione scolded. "Madam Pomfrey said you weren't to get excited -"

"I'm not excited!" Ron bellowed, sheering a hand through his hair, which was already wildly disordered from sleep. It's bright redness stood starkly out against the pristine white bedcovers. Hermione reached a hand out to smooth it down, but he waved her away impatiently. "Stop fussing over me, Hermione."

Hermione shook her head at him. "Now, Ron -"

"Don't 'now Ron' me." Ron said darkly. "I bet you it was that stinky little ferret who put the curse on me." He nodded his head at Hermione knowingly. "His dad probably taught it to him - they needn't think _I believe all that rot about them not being involved in the Dark Arts. He's probably You-Know-Who's own spawn -"_

"I wish you'd say Voldemort, Ron." Hermione sighed. "Harry is right - not saying his name makes him all the more sinister -"

"The trouble with Harry, Hermione -" Ron said grimly, " - is that he doesn't know when to lay low. Didn't I warn him not to get involved in Ginny's affairs -"

"_Did you now?' Hermione asked pointedly._

Ron ignored her. "It's all right for me - I'm her brother. But when you've been mooning over the same guy for six years - it's been six years now, Hermione - and he suddenly starts sticking his nose in, saying he's worried about Ginny, now that Ginny knows about him and Cho - well, tell me what you would think, if you were her, Hermione."

Hermione decided not to tell Ron about the rumours flying around regarding Ginny and Draco. "What would I think, Ron?" she asked mildly.

Ron banged his fist down on his bedcovers. He nodded his head triumphantly at her, the righteous redhead. "You'd think that he was interested in you, _that's what you'd think!" he crowed, nodding his head accusingly. "__And you'd go around mooning even more, that's what you'd do! __And you'd go running to your brother! And who has to shoulder the burden of your heartbreak? Can you tell me who, Hermione?"_

"My brother?" Hermione suggested. 

Ron pumped his head up and down. "Yes!" he crowed. "Yes! And who gets off scot-free with a luscious black-haired beauty? Can you tell me who, Hermione?" he peered interrogatively at her. 

"Harry?" Hermione asked blandly.

"Ha!" Ron leaned back in bed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Nobody," he pronounced solemnly, "Nobody, absolutely Nobody, Hermione, knows the problems I have."

"Of course, Ron." Hermione soothed. 

Ron slid mournfully down in bed. "Absolutely Nobody." He yawned. "Say, Hermione, could you sing that Muggle thing again - it's kind of soothing -"

"Of course, Ron." Hermione repeated, smoothing down his bedcovers and the tempestuous red hair. It was a good thing she loved him, she reflected ruefully. 

***  
  


"Hey, funny-face." Harry said, poking his head in the door.

Ginny woke with a start out of the light doze she'd been in. "Hey Harry." She said, smiling slightly. Even if he was with Cho -

You could cling to the little things.

He'd come to see her, after all.

"Just wanted to see how you were doing." Harry said awkwardly. He smiled self-mockingly at her. "Suave, aren't I? I got you some flowers."

"They are customary." Ginny agreed, accepting them. This was good. He'd forget about her humiliating breakdown when she saw him talking to Cho in the Hall, and they could just be friends again.

And if that wasn't enough for her -

He'd never have to know.

Harry seemed to pick up her thoughts, because his smile suddenly became more natural, taking on an almost relieved air. "I'll leave you to your recuperation, then." He told her. "I want to drop by and see Ron as well."

"Weasley Week in the Hospital Wing." Ginny said sleepily. She took in his boyish face drowsily, wanting her last sight before she dropped into sleep to be that of Harry Potter.

Her hero.

Harry was gone. Surprising how he could do that so easily - slip in and out of rooms, so that you would never know he had been there – 

***  
  


Draco Malfoy strolled down the Hospital Wing corridors, his face infuriatingly bland. He passed by Potter, who gave him one of his patented glares - Draco could have laughed, he was so predictable - before stomping off. Draco took that as a personal compliment. He didn't particularly want to be in the same vicinity as The Wonder Wizard, God's gift to witches anyway.

Of course, annoying him was _so satisfying._

Draco whistled a light tune under his breath. He turned left as the corridor curved, and found himself in front of the youngest Weasley's room.

The kissable Weasley.

Quite possibly the _only kissable Weasley._

Not that he was going to try out any of the others to make sure.

Draco didn't like it, but the fact remained that the youngest Weasley was eminently kissable. He didn't like her, but he didn't mind kissing her.

He didn't mind the way her shoulders felt under his hands either.

Or the way her body felt through a layer of cloth.

Or the way she panted, short, shallow breaths, when she practically begged to be kissed.

No bone, this youngest Weasley, all soft female flesh, no muscle or bone to be felt at all. Rather surprising, considering the fact that her father made about enough to feed one owl and an earthworm. 

No - this youngest Weasley was made to lie on silk sheets, to be draped in jewels, to be fed the richest, most decadent chocolates . . .

So that when you kissed her, she would taste of sugar and woman, of heat and passion, of . . .

Of him.

Draco didn't like the fact that he was constantly picturing the youngest Weasley in poses that made it necessary to have a cold shower. Unfortunately, his hormones seem to be irresistibly drawn to the body she possessed. Equally unfortunately, Draco was always brutally honest with himself.

Draco slipped in the door, not wanting to awaken her.

He didn't even know why he was here -

Yes, he did.

He was here because he needed to see this girl -

He watched as she breathed, deep, even breaths, her face relaxed and soft as she slept, without the angry, hard statement she'd looked at him with not hours ago. 

Nice to look at her like this, nobody knowing that he was here - he could just stand here and look at her for as long as he wanted . . .

His Sleeping Weasley . . .

His ears pricked up at the sound of footsteps padding down the corridor, too quickly for him to do anything. Too fast the door was opened; the light turned on; too fast a figure appeared in the doorway, revealing a rumpled but alert Ron Weasley.

A Ron Weasley who took in his position next to Ginny's bed, straightening quickly, but not quickly enough -

A Ron Weasley whose eyes widened, mouth dropped open, and tongue moved to shriek,

"What the hell are you doing, you - you _pervert!"_


	7. Darkness

Draco ducked to avoid the furious punch Ron flung at him, flung at him so heavily that he almost lost his balance and fell

AN : Sorry for the extremely long wait. =) Hope this makes up for it. Just want to let you know that I posted some new stories in the dracoginny archive " [www.geocities.com/dracoginny][1]" while ff.net was down. Plugggggggg….. Feel free to go there and leave your marvelous reviews for me or even the other more talented writers there =) Or submit!****

**Anthend**

**Chapter Seven : Darkness**

Draco ducked to avoid the furious punch Ron flung at him, flung at him so heavily that he almost lost his balance and fell. "What the HELL are you DOING?" Ron screeched again, sounding for all the world like an angry fishwife. Draco ducked the next punch Ron threw at him, but he failed to avoid Ron's lash at his gut. 

"Fuck!" Draco swore, and kicked at Ron.

Ron kicked back.

"What are you two _doing_?" Ginny shrieked. She'd woken up. Great. Just great. That was all he needed to make his day, the youngest Weasley getting ideas about his feelings for her. Which, of course, were non-existent. 

Ron didn't bother to answer her. Draco got the feeling that he was too angry to listen to her. For a few minutes the two boys circled, ducking and heaving blows at each other. The fight ended when the door flew open and hit Draco on the behind to reveal a _furious _Hermione. "Ron!" she shouted. "You _promised _you wouldn't get out of bed!"

Draco picked himself off the floor. "Yeah, Ron." He mimicked, back to being arrogant and cocky despite his disheveled head of white fluff and the bruise rapidly forming on his cheekbone. "You _promised, _Ronniekins -"

Ron threw another punch at him. Hermione was by his side in an instant, staring at Draco like he was a mutated Hippogriff. "He's not worth it, Ron."

Ron was breathing, but they all knew that he wouldn't throw another punch with Hermione so close by. "What the hell were you doing, Malfoy?" he asked quietly, each word full of a seething anger. 

Draco was straight-backed and in control of the situation. He looked down his aristocratic nose at Ron, and deep down was impressed at his own talent in bullshitting. His ribs ached and he wasn't sure that his aristocratic nose was still straight, but his voice came out strong and steady, with a tinge of contempt he was proud of. "I don't need to explain myself to you, Weasel." He said, just as quietly. 

"Get out of here." Ginny said suddenly. They all turned to look at her.

"You heard me. Get out of here. All of you." She repeated. She laid back down, closing her eyes determinedly. "Waiting for you to go," She pronounced.

They all went. Once they were out in the hallway, Draco went off in one direction, Weasel and Granger in the other. A minute later they passed each other again, determinedly not looking at each other, as they went the _right _way. 

_____

"He was _where_?" Harry asked incredulously, staring at his best friend over the chess board he'd just set up. "Are you serious?"

"Would I joke about something like that?" Ron asked indignantly. "Even _I'm _not that perverted. And I hardly think I dreamt something like that either -"

"You're serious." Harry said wonderingly, cutting off what was sure to be another Malfoy-is-a-slimy-git tirade from the Captain of the Anti-Anything-Malfoy- Association. He'd once timed one of Ron's lectures on Draco Malfoy and he didn't want to repeat the experience. "That's disgusting. What did Ginny think of it?"

"Ginny -" Ron said grimly, "is pretending that nothing happened. She just went back to sleep and I haven't seen her since." He checked his watch. "She's coming over in a minute, though, Dumbledore said something about wanting to see the both of us." 

Harry nodded. "Probably wants to talk to you about the Curse."

"No - really?" Ron asked, feigning shock. He chuffed Harry on the side of the head. "What _else _would he be coming to talk to me about, Harry?"

"Your little nightly scuffle with Mr. Malfoy?" Dumbledore suggested from the doorway.

Ron turned a brick-red in two seconds. "Sir!"

"The little rat must have told tales." Harry muttered.

"On the contrary, Mr. Potter. It was young Miss Weasley who related the tale to me." Dumbledore twinkled faintly at Ron. "I gather she is not very pleased with either of you at the moment."

"No, I am not." Ginny said severely. She appeared at the doorway beside Dumbledore. "Are you going to give him a detention?" she asked hopefully.

Dumbledore gave a little cough. "I will discuss the details of their punishments with them later, Miss Weasley. Perhaps, if young Mr. Potter would care to leave -"

Harry took the hint and left, giving Ginny a wink as he disappeared. Ginny wished her heart would stop doing jumps around Harry. 

What had she done that was so bad it warranted loving Harry Potter?

"Now, if you would care to take a seat -"

Ginny sat on the chair next to her brother's bedside, scrupulously not looking at him. 

"So what do you want to know?" Ron asked abruptly. Ginny realized with some surprise that he was fidgeting in bed, one of his hands clenched tightly in the sheets. She glanced quickly up at Dumbledore, but he was staring off into space - at the wall above Ron's head. 

"Nothing to worry yourself about, Mr. Weasley. Do you have any idea of who put the curse on you?"

Ron shook his head. "No. I've been thinking about that. All I can tell you is that the voice sounded -" he paused, a frown pleating his forehead. "- it didn't sound natural. It didn't sound like a girl or a boy -"

Ginny thought back to the voice she had heard - _Imperio_ - it had been too quick to catch anything of the person who said it. Had it been a girl or a boy?

"I think the voice was female." She said slowly, uncertainly. "I'm not sure, though." She added quickly, not wanting Ron to scoff at her. 

"What makes you say that, Miss Weasley?"

Ginny thought back again, so hard that her head began to hurt. "I - I don't know." She said, frustrated. "I really don't know. It just sounded a lot more female than male."

"It was female." Ron said suddenly, startling her. He sounded triumphant. "It was definitely female."

Dumbledore stared at Ron, his eyes calm and mild - annoyingly so, Ginny thought, especially since Ron sounded so certain. "Why definitely, Mr. Weasley?"

"I recognize that voice." Ron said, his face fierce and focused. "I _recognize _that voice." 

_____

Draco lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, his hands behind his head. The ceiling above him was comparatively normal, made up of blank grey stone and chiseled rocks. He shifted his head slightly so he could see Crabbe, who was bending over his foot, painstakingly cutting his toenails. Draco could see that the action was requiring tremendous mental energy, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a thin, contemptuous smirk. 

Crabbe and Goyle weren't quite as stupid as they made themselves out to be. With the tremendous cunning of stupid people, they had learnt to conceal what intelligence they had from a young age. Draco sometimes thought that they had concealed it so well they couldn't quite remember where they had put it. This was only sometimes - on occasion they displayed an ingenious, simple cunning that surprised him.

But only slightly.

Draco had been taught never to underestimate the enemy.

Not that Crabbe or Goyle were, by any stretch of the imagination, enemies.

On the other hand, it was always just as well to be on your guard.

Which was why Draco felt so _angry_, so fricking _angry_, that he couldn't control himself around the youngest Weasley.

The only thing you couldn't control were your hormones.

But you could repress them.

Draco let himself think of the youngest Weasley for a brief moment, his thoughts brisk and businesslike, tinged with the cold anger that he felt for both himself and her. Himself for the fact that he _was _thinking about her and her because -

Because she had long red hair and a carnal mouth and freckles that shouldn't have stirred him.

Because she was a Weasley and a Gryffindor and not a Slytherin. 

Because when she looked at Potter it was so obvious what she felt for him.

And mostly because when she looked at _him_, he could read the mixed feelings in her gaze.

Draco didn't want to think about that.

He especially didn't want to think about that, and remember the way her warm lips had pressed against and sought his, and realize that she had been willing.

Realize that for a moment she hadn't been a Weasley, and he hadn't been a Malfoy -

Just two young bodies needing each other like fire needed air - 

_____

Harry surfaced for air and took a deep, fortifying breath. Kissing Cho was like -

Well, there really wasn't any description for it.

But kissing Cho was definitely not what he should have been doing with a Quidditch match in fifteen minutes.

Harry pulled away and gave her an apologetic smile. "Sorry. I've got to go prep my team."

"You haven't finished prepping me -" Cho trailed invitingly, running her nails down his sleeve.

Harry took her mouth in another long, energy-draining kiss. It was hot and hungry and God, they really needed to get a room -

"Now I've really got to go." Harry said, glancing at his watch. Five minutes to game time. The Gryffindors were going to _kill _him. Kill him, castrate him and whack him upside down. He turned resolutely away from Cho's red mouth and wicked hands, and sprinted down the steps. 

He jogged into the Gryffindor locker room with half a minute to spare. In a flash he was in his Quidditch robes and someone was tossing him his Firebolt along with a half-worried, half-annoyed look. 

"No time for a pre-game talk now -" Harry said clearly to the team who was assembled in front of him. He saw Dean toss their Keeper, Richard, a look, and was annoyed with himself because he knew it was justified. "All I have to say is - play a good game, like we've been doing in practice."

The team gave a half-hearted chorus of mumbles and Harry's heart sank. He raced out to the pitch.

The game started. Harry caught a blurred glance of the bleachers and was happy to see Cho sitting with Hermione. He was disappointed to see that Ron wasn't there, but not surprised. He'd only left Ron an hour ago, after all - and he _had_ suffered through a Cruciatus curse and contact with Malfoy; Harry wasn't sure which was the greater evil - he couldn't expect Ron to be up to watching a Quidditch match.

Some small part of Harry rebelled at that, but he squashed it down quickly. 

Harry was jolted out of his reverie when Dean screamed at him. "HARRY! THE SNITCH! THE SNITCH!"

Harry turned around just in time to see Fred Wilkes, Hufflepuff Seeker, grab the golden Snitch and hold it up in the air. 

_____

At about the time Gryffindor lost their first match of the year, Dumbledore and Ginny were watching Ron pace the room, the fact that he was wearing an extremely flimsy infirmary robe forgotten. His face was tight and red with exertion, his fists clenched at his sides. 

"I _recognize _that voice!" he said suddenly, stopping to look at both of them, his voice agitated. "I _do!_ I just can't _remember_ -"

"It's all right Ron," Ginny said soothingly. "It'll come to you - "

Dumbledore watched Ron pace, his face impassive. "Calm yourself, Mr. Weasley." He said gently. 

Ron released a huge, frustrated growl. "Why can't I remember?" he howled, grabbing his hair with his hands. "I RECOGNIZE that VOICE!"

Suddenly the door popped open and Colin and Hannah came in. They both looked despondent. 

"Ginny." Colin said. He glanced at Hannah. "We thought we'd just come by and tell you that Gryffindor lost the Quidditch match."

Ron stared at him, his troubles temporarily forgotten. "What do you mean, we lost the Quidditch match?" he asked, quite simply. 

"Harry didn't catch the Snitch." Colin explained. 

Ron didn't say anything. Ginny wondered if he was going into shock. She was pretty shocked herself. The only match she remembered Harry ever losing was that one in her second year, and even then the Dementors had been a distraction. 

"The Gryffindors think it's because of Cho."

All made sense. The world was on its axis again. Cho - the main reason for any of Harry's mood swings. 

Ginny wished bitterly that Cho had never been born.

The door swung open and Harry came in, looking untidy but calm. He wasn't sweating or anything, and that was amazingly unusual for someone who'd just gotten off the Quidditch pitch. Even more unusual, and which tugged at Ginny's heart, was the look on Harry's face. He looked lost, as if he didn't quite understand what had just happened.

Ginny could understand - to a certain extent. She knew how much Quidditch meant to Harry, how much winning at Quidditch meant to Harry. He'd been so excited that summer when he'd been appointed Captain of the Quidditch team. She'd seen the fantasies in his eyes, being the best Captain ever, soaring through the air.

To be pulled down so ignominiously to reality - to a very real failure - 

Even if she didn't love Quidditch as much as Harry did, she could certainly understand.

Her thoughts jerked to Draco, and she thought, idly, on a plane different from her conscious thoughts that he must be as used to losing as Harry was to winning on the Quidditch pitch -

"Hey, Ron." Harry said, strangely normal. The lost look was still on his face, the lack of comprehension, the mild puzzlement. "We lost at Quidditch."

Ron just stared at his, his jaw hanging open. He ruffled his hair. "Harry! I -"

"It's not _that _big a deal -" Hannah interrupted, her voice bored as she glanced down to check her nails. She rolled her eyes and tossed her hair. " - it's only a Quidditch match after all - not the end of the world -"

Everyone stared at Hannah, their jaws hanging open. 

Ginny felt an overwhelming urge to giggle. That was so typically Hannah, to reduce the drama of the moment into a small, childish thing, and look at how everybody was staring at her - like she'd just committed blasphemy - except for Dumbledore, who was staring rather queerly at Ron -

Ginny knew, suddenly, that something was very wrong -

She turned her head very slowly, realizing, as she did so, that Ron didn't have the disbelief on his face that everyone else did -

That instead of disbelief, on Ron's face was a slowly dawning recognition, bringing with it horror as his eyes remained, dazed, on Hannah -

A split second before his mouth opened, Ginny knew what he was going to say, and she squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to hear this, not wanting to have this happen -

"That's the voice." Ron said, slowly, his voice still incredulous -

Ginny opened her eyes, she had to see this, she had to _see _this - and saw Ron's hand come up to point at her friend, one of her best friends - as he repeated, "That's the voice. That's the voice that said the curses."

And then, wonderingly, Ginny thought, _All this time, all this time -_

   [1]: http://www.geocities.com/dracoginny



	8. Suspicion and Snogging and Suspicious Sn...

Even in adversity, Hannah was magnificent ****

Anthend

Chapter Eight : Suspicion and Snogging and Suspicious Snogging

Even in adversity, Hannah was magnificent.

She stood, straight and proud, slightly away from Colin, her eyes open and her hair tossed back over her shoulder. She didn't deny the charges, she didn't admit them, she simply said nothing, staring straight back at Ron's horror-filled eyes. 

It was, perhaps, the best thing she could have done.

Her gift of reducing the melodramatic to the trivial stood her in good stead then, as she stood there before their accusing eyes. With every second that passed, Ron's accusation sounded hollower and hollower.

Ginny wondered vaguely why she didn't feel disbelief, didn't feel like this was all a dream. It was all so strangely real, so normal, so matter-of-fact, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. She kept on looking at Hannah, and realized that it was due to Hannah that it seemed so ordinary. 

Hannah, who had always stood larger than life, vibrantly alive, looking at people from her own lofty peak, who had always seemed so much _more _than other people - she had a way of making people seem more ordinary than they perhaps were. She had a way of keeping things in perspective instead of dramatizing them.

It was a little bit, Ginny thought, like having a sleepover and then starting to tell scary stories. People usually, in that kind of atmosphere, forgot themselves and got caught up in the eeriness, the strangeness of dark shadows and awkward words that came out from the storyteller's mouth. If Hannah came in while you were telling scary stories, it would be like suddenly waking up in a bright morning with birds chirping - the stories sounded ridiculous and laughable rather than frightening.

That was Hannah's gift.

The silence grew.

Then Ron spoke, again, "It _was _her voice!"

Curiously enough, it was Ron's steadiness, his self-assurance, that convinced Ginny. If Ron had sounded unsure, convinced by the normality of Hannah, Ginny wouldn't have believed him. Ron was by nature a suggestible person. 

The very fact that he remained unconvinced - Ginny _knew _that her brother was correct in his accusation.

She looked at Harry - how dear his face looked! He didn't look lost anymore, he looked strong and sure. She thought, almost irrelevantly, that he was strangely like Hannah in some ways. He was at his best in adversity. She watched, bittersweet emotion at the fact that she could predict the tightening of his boyish mouth, that she was familiar with the slightly ungainly swing of his not fully developed limbs as he moved swiftly to the door, as if to prevent Hannah from leaving suddenly. 

Finally, almost reluctantly, her gaze swung to the one person she dreaded to look at.

Colin.

He looked so _young _as he stood there, fair hair ruffled and standing on end, face white and confused. As she watched him, though, he seemed to stand straighter and he took a step closer to Hannah, and that was like a flag for Ginny to read, telling her where he stood.

First, last and always, his loyalties would lie with Hannah. 

Ginny well knew how loyal Colin was. He was still devoted to Harry - although not quite so obviously now. It had been a bond between them in the beginning, before mutual obsession had softened into devotion to Harry and friendship between them. Slowly the bond had grown into something not so much about Harry and more about the two of them. Then in their third year Hannah had blown into their lives.

Despite Colin's subsequent crush on Hannah and his shifting devotion to her, Ginny's mild fears that it would cause a rift between them proved groundless. Colin remained her staunch friend - despite the frequency of his trips to the bathroom. 

Hannah still said nothing, and Ginny sensed a difference between her previous silence and the one that was pervading the room now. She could almost feel Hannah's faltering ground - unsure how to handle Ron's confidence and the slight hardening of emotion against her. She shifted her weight on her feet - nothing could have been worse. It proclaimed to the room her nervousness.

Ginny didn't miss the way Hannah leaned slightly towards Colin and how Colin took a confident, sure step forward, as if to buffer Hannah's flagging strength.

"Miss Smirten - perhaps if we could adjourn to my room?" Dumbledore suggested.

Ginny looked sharply at him and at the way his countenance was as quietly calm as ever.

"Shall I go?" Ginny asked, momentarily confused at her role then. Hannah's accuser, Hannah's friend - she didn't know which one to choose, and why she had to choose at all . . .

"Alone, perhaps, would be wiser, Miss Weasley - "

"I'm coming." Colin said, in a tone that suggested he was prepared to fight.

Dumbledore swept a swift glance over the young figure and his eyes darkened slightly, in a way Ginny didn't understand. "Alone." He repeated, gently.

Hannah threw Ginny a glance as she walked out of the room, but she didn't look at Colin, and Ginny wondered why she felt as if she had fallen in Hannah's esteem.

And why it mattered - if Hannah was the one who had betrayed them all. 

_____

Draco couldn't stop smirking.

The _look_, the _look_, the absolute _hilarity _of the look on Potter's face when he realized that the Hufflepuff Seeker - what was his name again? Wilkers? Whiskers? Whatever - had gotten the Snitch!

He could live on that for _days_!

He could rub that in Potter's face from now until Kingdom Come! Potter would never live that down! Poor Potter! _Poor_ Snitch-deprived Potter. 

The jokes at his expense, the marvelous Slytherin gloating that was already at full-blast . . .

Draco would have heaved a contented sigh if he had been capable of doing something so hopelessly mundane.

Crabbe and Goyle were getting drunk on some smuggled in alcohol. Draco waved them away impatiently as they came by, proffering goblets. He wasn't averse to a few goblets of vintage wine, but he detested the cheap alcohol to be got at the nearby village.

Particularly as he enjoyed his victories sober.

Especially a victory as marvelously stupendous as this!

Draco sat by himself, shamelessly gloating over the look on Potter's face as he watched the festivities. Although not great fans of Hufflepuff house, the Slytherins, one and all detested Harry Potter, as was evidenced by the many defaced posters of Harry Potter hanging on the banners. 

"Enjoying yourself?" a sultry female voice asked, as an equally sultry female body draped herself artistically over the arm of his armchair.

Draco looked indifferently into the smoky gray eyes of Blaise Zabini. "Like you wouldn't believe." He drawled coolly. 

Blaise threw her head back and laughed, a theatrical, dramatic move that Draco found oddly transparent despite its questionable attractiveness. He wondered idly if she was looking to repeat the somewhat - heated - experience they had shared a month earlier in Blaise's room. 

And wondered if he would oblige her if she was.

"I find that statement particularly hard to believe." Blaise replied, her pink tongue darting out to lick her lips, red with a combination of punch and lipstick. She lowered her gaze and stared meaningfully at him. 

"I've been meaning to catch you alone." Blaise continued, slipping easily into his lap.

Draco looked at her with no little contempt. "Is that so?" He glanced up and saw Pansy Parkinson staring at the both of them with dark eyes. 

"That's so."

"In that case," Draco drawled, standing and pulling her to her feet, "let's go up to your room."

As they made their way past a multitude of drunken Slytherins and the dark stare of Pansy Parkinson as well as several other hopefuls, Draco pushed away the thought that he'd have preferred red hair on his pillow and wide green eyes that didn't falter - 

_____

"I can't _stand _this waiting!" Ginny burst out, jumping to her feet and looking at the door to Dumbledore's office. The Headmaster and Hannah had been in the room for half an hour, and there was no sign of any emergence from either of them. She looked, frustrated, at Colin, who sat calmly flipping through a photography magazine. Ron had been forced to stay in the infirmary by the enraged Madam Pomfrey, and Harry had stayed with him after calling Hermione down as well.

"Well, she didn't do it, so what's the problem?" Colin asked. 

Ginny sat again and looked at her best friend. "Ron recognized her voice." She pointed out hollowly.

Colin didn't blink. "People have been wrong before."

"You don't really believe that." Ginny said flatly. "If you did, you'd be furious with me for believing that Hannah did it."

Colin lowered his eyes and sighed. "_You_ believe she did it, Ginny."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. It means nothing."

"Colin - "

"Look, you believe she did it. It's all black and white with you - either she did it or she didn't. I'm not like that, Ginny. There are all sorts of things to take into account. _Why _would she do it? I can't think of any reason why Hannah would do it. _How _could she have done it, and why didn't she do it another time? She hasn't learned those curses yet, and she's never shown any signs of being that powerful. Look -" Colin sighed again. "I don't know, all right. Hannah's my friend."

Ginny stared at Colin. "And you like her."

"That has nothing to do with it, you know that."

"Yes, I know that." Ginny paused. "I'm sorry. But Hannah's my friend too. And - I don't know. I feel guilty for thinking it's her and guilty for thinking it's not her."

She jumped to her feet again, pushing back tendrils of bright red hair. "Look, I'm going to go for a walk, all right? Call me if Dumbledore comes out."

Ginny didn't wait for Colin's reply, but walked quickly down the hall, wanting to get away from that stifling, dark place where Colin was sitting placidly and everything around her was still, while inside she couldn't stop thinking.

That was probably why Dumbledore had a Pensieve, Ginny thought, agitated. Because he couldn't stand having all these _thoughts _running around, never able to catch hold of any and getting more frustrated and panicky when you couldn't -

Ginny went down the stairs and out into the corridor, turning the corner and bumping right into Draco Malfoy.

He hadn't been walking, she saw. He wasn't even affected by her running into him. He merely shifted his weight, gave her a cold look and went on smoking his cigarette.

"Are you allowed to do that in school?" Ginny asked, not even accusingly, surprisingly enough. It was pure curiousity, and he seemed to sense that, because he answered straightforwardly enough, no Malfoy spite and snap.

"Fuck off, Weasley, of course not."

That was the thing about Draco, Ginny thought, almost idly. He could sense your every thought and move. He wasn't like Harry, who was real and straightforward and honest and didn't understand anything that wasn't obvious and hammered at him. Draco was subtle and swift, and read your emotions like people read books. 

And if he used that gift like a dagger, then that was just what Draco _did_. 

Ginny realized, dimly, that she felt no more animosity toward Draco, and wondered where all the dislike had gone. She just wanted to look at him, and drink in every bit of him, even the bits that weren't perfect - like the skeletal hands that were still beautiful, the scar on his earlobe. She wanted to spend hours just standing there in that curious limbo-state that always existed when she was alone with him - as if everything else would keep on happening around them.

"Do you have something to _say _to me, Weasley?" Draco asked with exaggerated politeness. "Or are you standing there like an idiot because that's what Weasleys _do_?"

Ginny watched as he inhaled, almost surprised at the anger she felt at his words. "Are you smoking because you have a death wish or is it just because Malfoys are _stupid_?"

Something flared in Draco's eyes and died down quickly. No, not died down, Ginny thought, more like was squashed quickly and efficiently, and she wanted, suddenly, to see what would happened if it flared out of control . . . 

_____

Colin sat outside Professor Dumbledore's room, outwardly very very calm. If one had looked closer, however, one would have seen a curious tightness about the calm, a very taut control that was being exercised over the entire body. 

Colin wanted very badly to know what was happening inside the room.

He wanted to know if Dumbledore believed that Hannah was capable of doing such a thing. 

The door opened suddenly and Dumbledore stood in the doorway. Behind him, Colin could see Hannah, sitting in a chair, her head uncharacteristically bowed, her pose exhausted. 

"Ah, Mister Creevey." Dumbledore said in the mildest tones. Anger flared in Colin's eyes at his placidity. "Would you mind summoning Professor McGonagall for me?"

"No." Colin said stonily, getting up. "What for?"

"Tell her to bring along Professor Snape and the strongest truth potion he has."

Colin nodded. "All right." 

_____

Harry left Ron's room and breathed a sigh of frustration. For a moment he leaned his forehead against the cool stone wall, wishing the coolness on his whole body. 

He _hated _this. He _hated _knowing that Ron had been under a curse and Ginny had too, and that another person he knew had been accused of it. 

He _hated _Voldemort.

He wanted, very badly, to just lie down where he stood and let the whole world pass peacefully around him. He wanted peace and quiet and normal happiness and grief and annoyances.

He didn't want to always be averting Voldemort's work and always on his toes and always in mortal danger or always seeing his friends hurt.

A great weariness lay on Harry and he slid down the wall, resting his head on his knees. Dimly, as if from very far away, he could hear the low, quiet murmurs as Hermione and Ron spoke to each other. 

Harry suddenly felt very lonely. 

He wanted someone like Hermione was to Ron - someone who loved him unconditionally and would listen to him, or simply sat with him and understood and was quiet and supported him.

He thought of Cho, and thought of how it was she who was supposed to be that to him, and the weariness seemed to deepen; the loneliness grew heavier. Cho couldn't be that for him, he knew, and it was surprising how he felt, as if he had always known that. Cho was lust and bright happiness and shallow affection.

Strangely enough he thought of Ginny. Ginny - who had always been devoted to him and had always liked him. He wouldn't call it love, no, or friendship even.

But it could grow into both, and Harry wanted that very badly just then.

He got up. 

_____

Ginny wondered what eventually pushed Draco over the edge. They'd been staring at each other for some minutes, Draco taking long, deep inhalations of cigarette smoke and her very still, just looking at him, taking him in.

"Well which is it, Malfoy?" Ginny finally asked, breaking the silence, wondering when she'd stopped thinking of him as Malfoy and started thinking of him as Draco. Draco Malfoy - a nasty horrible git. Malfoy - a nasty evil git hated universally. "Death wish or stupidity?"

The _something _flared up again in Draco's eyes and he casually, carelessly, dropped the cigarette the ground. "It must be stupidity." He said, almost reflectively, as he reached roughly for her. "Or I wouldn't be doing - _this_."

Then his mouth was on hers and the built up frustration Ginny was feeling melted away and she lost herself.

She was nobody, nothing, just a heated body of hot sensation, with hands that winded themselves around his neck and held on, desperately grasping the warm neck, the roughly silky texture of white-gold hair she wasn't looking at.

And his hands, his large thin hands which held her waist tightly and gave her such a warm feeling of security, of rightness - hands which didn't move at all, simply clasped her waist as if claiming what was his.

And all the while they kissed.

It was like drowning, like being drowned, being soaked in hot, hot water, boiling away Weasley and Malfoy and leaving nothing behind, nothing but the two of them kissing.

And when they pulled away from each other, it was like being taken out of the hot water into the cold air.

Ginny looked at Draco, looked at him and saw his eyes and the quiet desperation and frustration in them.

A silence stretched between them, and the strange bond between them was _there, _almost visible, and Ginny almost cried out.

Finally Draco spoke. "So what happens now?"


	9. Things start happening. More.

AN : Didn't take that long this time, did it

AN : Didn't take that long this time, did it? =) Chapter Ten will be out as soon as I correct a bunch of stuff my beta reader pointed out that made me blush in shame. (Read : OVERWORKED beta reader who I thank from the very bottom of my very frazzled little heart) THIS SERIES WILL BE FINISHED THIS WEEK! I have declared it! Or . . . maybe not…*growls and turns back to the keyboard*

** **

PS : Don't forget to check out [www.geocities.com/dracoginny][1] if you like d/g and **my** stuff….I've got a new series there about D/G/R/Hr/H after Hogwarts. =)

** **

**Anthend **

**Chapter Nine : Things Start Happening. More.  
  
**

Harry couldn't believe what he was seeing.

It didn't matter that he had been looking for Ginny. It didn't matter that he had already realized that he and Cho weren't meant to be.

All that mattered was that she was kissing _Neville._

Harry spoke. He couldn't help it. His voice came out, disbelieving, loud, "Cho?"

They broke apart instantly. Neville's face went a bright red, but Cho didn't even have the grace to blush. "Harry!" She said, and he couldn't help thinking that it was amazing that she didn't sound in the least bit contrite. She just sounded surprised, and slightly concerned.

"What are you _doing?"_

Neville started backing away, looking awkward. "Look, Harry -"

"At what?" Harry snapped. "The person who I thought was my girlfriend? Or maybe the person I thought was my _friend?"_

Neville stopped. "Harry -"

"Keep quiet." Harry said, his face burning. "I get what's going on, don't worry. I'll even spare you the customary mumbling and apologies." It was Harry's turn to back away, his hands outstretched. "Go back to what you were doing. Don't mind me."

He left. 

Anger. No, not really anger. Humiliation, yes. Annoyance and a bit of anger that Neville could actually do that to him. It crossed his mind that he didn't really blame Cho. Cho was just doing what Cho _did. _

But beneath the humiliation, a sheepish, almost ashamed thought was that he wouldn't have to tell Cho that he was breaking up with her. 

_____  
  


Ginny looked at Draco, looked at his pale, handsome white face. "I don't know." She said simply. She wanted to reach for him, but held herself back. She hugged herself. "I just-" she broke off and said haltingly, "I just know that I _need you . ."_

Draco was suppressing some very strong emotion - she could see it in the eyes that, just then, weren't icy or cold, simply confused and trying desperately to re-erect barriers she didn't want between them. She could almost see his internal struggle. 

An unbidden thought went through her. _Has anyone ever said that they needed him?_

She started to push it away. She didn't want to get too close to this boy -

Just as he didn't want to get too close to her.

So she just looked at him. Simply looked at him. Searchingly, at the features she had seen so often and never really looked at. Saw the clever gray eyes, the proud, haughty set of the strong jaw. The way his hands were clenched then, the way his feet were slightly braced apart like Harry's, who was always waiting for some new calamity, but tenser at the moment. 

"Stop looking at me like that." Draco gritted out. He sounded strained, as if he was about to break. 

They stood in silence, just looking at each other. No, Ginny realized. She was looking at Draco. Draco was simply holding himself in, his eyes glazed, struggling -

She knew, quite suddenly, that he was struggling not to come to her -

_Malfoy pride, Ginny thought vaguely, __Malfoy pride and Malfoy pride and Malfoy pride -_

_It's always pride._

She wanted him so badly. 

She _needed him._

She'd never needed Harry.

She'd longed for Harry, she'd wanted Harry with everything good and brave in her, but she'd never needed him.

Not the way she needed this boy who stood so close to her and was trying so hard to be far away in mind -

She needed him with everything in her, everything bad and mean and good and nice - everything that made her who she was -

She couldn't let him leave.

So she held him.

She simply stepped forward and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, her head against his chest, holding him tightly, so tightly -

Willing him not to leave.

And when his body softened against hers, and his head rested on the top of hers as if he was tired and weary, and his arms tightened around her like he wouldn't let go, ever, she knew she had won. 

_____  
  


Colin followed Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall down the corridor and up the stairs through to the Headmaster's room. His heart was beating oddly fast, his cheeks flushed and his eyes overbright. "Is that the truth potion?" he asked Professor Snape.

The man slanted him an odd look and grunted. Colin took that as a yes and he eyed the potion curiously. It looked almost like a glass of water, transparent and clear. How strange, Colin thought, that such a simple, innocent-looking thing could cause such a marvelous thing as truth to emerge. The photographer in him studied it well.

What was that quote, that quote from that Muggle book - _What is essential is invisible to the eye. Something like that. What book had it been - oh yes, The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. _

How wonderful, to be able to hide your true essence behind a simple outer covering, behind innocence -

Colin thought, suddenly, of Hannah and almost laughed at the irony of it. 

His heart beat faster.

The door to Dumbledore's room swung open. 

_____  
  


Ginny tightened her hand in Draco's. Draco glanced down at her. 

They stood outside the gargoyle entrance, simply together. 

"I have to go up." Ginny said, turning her face up to look at him. His face was still a mask - but his eyes were different. They were uncertain and vulnerable, no cool ice to cover and distort. She reached up to kiss him and tried to lighten the moment, smiling against his lips teasingly.

He didn't smile back, and his hands tightened on her waist before they let go.

"I have to go." Ginny repeated, a crooked smile at him. "Draco -" she said hesitatingly, as he turned to leave, hands in robe pockets.

The coolness in his eyes almost made her cry. He was pushing her away again. "Yes?" he inquired coolly. 

"When will I see you again?" She wanted to slap herself for the inanity of the words.

He had already turned away. "You'll know when you see me."

Ginny watched him as he moved away. He was trying to regain control, trying to anger her.

It was working.

Her hands balled into fists and she had a sudden urge to hit out at his retreating back, that straight, proud back. 

How could you dislike someone you needed so much?

Ginny moved up the stairs, anger pouring through her, coursing down her veins and making her feet warm. _Ugh was the only word to describe it. UGH. _

Was it love? She didn't know. It was need, sheer heart-pounding need. It was something stronger than love, and twice as compelling. 

Love or not, something was drawing her to Draco.

Maybe it was another kind of curse. 

_____  
  


Harry watched Hannah.

He had to admire her courage. The girl sat, back erect, face -

All right. The face was ravaged.

"Drink it, Miss Smirten." Professor McGonagall said briskly. "All of it."

Miss Smirten drank.

Harry glanced at Ginny, wondering how she was taking the fact that one of her best friends had used an Unforgivable Curse. Two Unfogivable Curses.

Hannah jerked and her eyes glazed over. Dumbledore leaned forward, his eyes glittering queerly. "Miss Smirten?"

Hannah nodded. "I am Hannah Smirten."

"Good." Dumbledore crooked his head at Professor Snape. "Miss Smirten, was it you who performed the curses on Ronald and Virginia Weasley?"

Hannah jerked again. Harry found himself leaning forward. 

"Yes."

A sigh. From Ginny. Harry wanted to go over and hug her, but he restrained himself. Ginny was standing with Colin, and they were holding hands, so tightly that their knuckles were white. Ginny's face was pale and she looked like she was going to burst into tears. 

He couldn't do anything.

Helplessness.

Dumbledore's next question shocked him, even though it must have been inevitable. "Was it under Voldemort's command?"

The answer was swift but stilted. "No."

Ginny's face tightened. Harry didn't know if that was worse or not. To have her friend willingly place an Unforgivable curse on her must be far worse than if she was under another's command . . .

Dumbledore's next question took them all by surprise. "Were you under the Imperius Curse yourself Miss Smirten?"

A sort of relief came over Hannah's face. "Yes." 

_____  
  


Draco sat in a dark corridor. 

He was completely alone, and that was good. He couldn't hear any signs of any sort of life nearby - no shouts of students, no heavy gropings of couples, not even the faint scuffle mice made.

He was completely alone.

He welcomed the sensation.

He was tired. So tired. 

Ginny Weasley drained him. 

She took and took and took from him, until there was nothing left.

Except her.

Even now, in the simple, blessed solitude provided by the dark and the lack of contact with anything in the world, even now when he could pretend everyone was gone and he was the only one left in the whole world, even now he could feel the touch of her warm lips and the caress of her gentle hands and smell her.

That was the worst of it.

He could smell her.

There was no other sense so impossible to fool as the sense of smell.

She was there, with him.

He wanted to bang his head against the wall. He _hated this. He was Draco Malfoy. He controlled everything in his world, his world didn't control him. He was Draco Malfoy. _

He would not let her -

Let her do what? Draco asked himself bitterly. She couldn't do more than she had done. 

He hated this feeling of -

_Never underestimate your enemies._

He'd underestimated Ginny Weasley and his response to her. He'd thought it was only hormones, he hadn't counted on this feeling -

This feeling -

This feeling of unease in his stomach, this restlessness.

This feeling of need.

He hated it.

He would not let her -

He would not let _himself -_

Damage control, Draco thought, with only slight irony. Yes, damage control was what was needed here -

He'd let the situation get out of hand. 

That stopped now.

And it would never happen again. 

_____  
  


More shock.

"Hannah was under the Imperius Curse." Harry said out loud, his eyes meeting Dumbledore's for a brief moment. He watched as Dumbledore looked gravely at Snape and McGonagall. He looked at Ginny and Colin. If possible, they had both gone even whiter. Their hands were still clenched together, Harry noticed with an unreasonable irritation at the fact. He wondered if it stemmed from the fact that Ron and Hermione weren't there to lend him strength as the two over there were sharing strength.

"Yes." Dumbledore said finally. He looked at Hannah, and with infinite weariness he sat on a chair, bending slowly, carefully.

"Do you know who placed the curse on you?"

Hannah jerked. "No."

Harry let out his breath.

The room seemed to relax. 

There wasn't anything else to say. 

_____  
  


"They know about the curse." 

The Death Eater looked at Voldemort steadily. "They were bound to find out." A shrug, a careless flick of the hand. "It was not meant to be a secret, and Dumbledore is no fool."

"And how is he going to begin the search for you?"

The eyes lowered briefly, then flashed up again. "I was not told."

A pause, drawn-out, tense. 

"Your play has gone on long enough." Voldemort lifted his hand and drank deeply from a goblet. The Death Eater did not flinch as he knew Voldemort expected him to at the contents of the goblet. "I want it ended. I want Harry Potter brought to me."

"Soon."

"I am not -" Voldemort drank again, "- pleased with your insolence. You will bring him to me."

"It is not time."

Anger. "You will not defy me."

"It is not time."

Voldemort lifted his hand in sudden fury. "You will bring him to me!"

"It is not time."

A dissipation of the fury. "It is not time." Voldemort repeated silkily. "And can you tell me why?"

"It is too soon. The boy is too closely looked after by Dumbledore, especially after the curses on his friends. It will have to wait a while."

"And you want to continue your play during that time."

A smile. "Yes."

"I am not pleased with you." Voldemort trailed a finger over the carvings on the goblet. A carving of a man, kneeling. Of exquisite quality. "If you are wise, you will not do anything to invite suspicion before the boy is mine."

"Or your anger?"

Insolence. Voldemort's anger flashed again and faded. He enjoyed these flashes of impudence. It was a fine wine to be savoured - a novelty -

And when the attraction paled, measures could be taken.

"Or my anger." He agreed.

   [1]: http://www.geocities.com/dracoginny



	10. Confrontation

Anthend

AN : I told you it would be out quickly – this is dedicated to Hype who is always such a great reviewer.

** **

**Anthend**

** **

**Chapter Ten : Confrontation   
  
**

"So how are they going to look for the person who put the Imperius Curse on you?" Colin asked Hannah as they walked together. They were headed towards the Forbidden Forest, away from the raucous sounds on the Quidditch pitch in preparation for the match between Slytherin and Gryffindor.

Hannah shrugged, already back to her ordinary extraordinary self. Her black hair bounced saucily as she moved, the green eyes flashed with eagerness and anticipation.

She looked exactly as she had before being accused of putting the curses on them.

But she wasn't, Ginny realized, flashing a quick glance at the girl. She wasn't. None of them were the same. A bond had sprung up between Colin and Hannah - they were closer now than they had been before. And outwardly, although everything was the same between Ginny and Hannah, there was a queer constraint in Ginny's behaviour towards the brunette. 

She couldn't forget the way she had immediately believed that Hannah was the guilty party.

She couldn't forgive herself for that.

She should have _known. Hannah was her friend. She couldn't have known, but she should have, and that was the unending paradox that gave her guilt._

"Dumbledore didn't want to say."

They were walking close to the Forbidden Forest. Hannah stopped at the edge and peered curiously through the thick, stifling leaves that blocked out any sunlight.

Ginny gave a sudden shiver. "I hate this place." She said, looking uneasily around her. "It's so dead."

Colin glanced at the forest. "I've always wanted to photograph this place."

"Have you?" Hannah asked.

Colin nodded.

"Strange things have been happening lately - " Hannah mused. "But nothing quite as strange as you, Colin."

Colin laughed, then turned suddenly serious. "Strange things have happened lately." He agreed. "That _thing attacking Ginny in the Gryffindor common room and then in the stairwell - Ginny and Ron being attacked - Gryffindor losing a Quidditch match . . ."_

"Figures you would include that in a list of strange happenings." Hannah gibed. She seemed so carefree that Ginny wondered if she wasn't acting.

"Hey, I think I saw a Two-Headed Bolbosaur -" Hannah said suddenly, peering in through the leaves again.

Colin came alert. "Really? Let's go take a look at it -"

"No thanks." Ginny muttered. "Not on my list of top ten things to do today -"

Colin threw her a laughing look. "Hannah and I will go take a look. We'll be back out in a minute -"

"Unless Colin decides to start taking pictures of it -"

Ginny grinned and moved slightly away from the edge of the forest. She frowned. Something was bothering her -

A slight rustle of the leaves five minutes later, and Colin emerged. She smiled. "Hey - Colin - I want to ask you something."

"Ask away." Colin replied, fiddling with the black camera that was hanging around his neck so much it was practically a limb.

"How did you know about the thing attacking me in the stairwell? I'm pretty sure I never told anybody."

Colin looked taken aback, and then vaguely indifferent. "Of course you did -" he mumbled, still fiddling with his camera. "I can't remember who told me, though -"

"No, I'm almost sure that I never told anybody - and Malfoy is the only one who knew -" Ginny frowned. "What's taking Hannah so long?"

Colin glanced up. "I don't know. She was right behind me."

Unease was beginning to uncurl through Ginny. "Maybe she got lost." She moved swiftly to the forest edge. "I think we should go in and look for her - the forest is pretty easy to get lost in -"

"Extremely." Colin agreed, his voice suddenly different. He was behind her. "Lots of dangerous animals -"

Ginny whirled around sharply. Colin stared at her. "What?"

Ginny shook her head instantly. "Nothing - I thought you were laughing, that's all -"

They were moving through the forest. Ginny looked around. "Hannah!"

She stopped. Colin was looking at her measuringly, as if studying a specimen he wanted to photograph. She glared at him. "Colin! We have to find Hannah -"

Colin shrugged, and she was suddenly aware of a languid grace in him that had never been present before. He stood there, a few feet away from her, that infernal camera in his hands, that appraising look. "There's an easier way to do that than traipsing through this primitive forest." He gave a graceful motion. His white teeth suddenly flashed in a disarming grin she'd never seen before. "I can tell you where she is."

Ginny glared at him. "Are you two playing a joke on me? Cause, I can tell you that it's not funny."

"Well, you said I was laughing." Colin was moving suddenly, through the forest, to a clearing three feet to their left. "You almost found her -"

Hannah lay on the ground, bloody and bruised.

And dead.

"Full of dangerous animals."

Ginny turned on him swiftly. Her heart was already pounding with grief and fear. "What is this, Colin?"

"This didn't have to happen, Ginny." Colin narrowed his eyes at her - pale blue-gray eyes she'd always liked looking at. "You shouldn't have asked about how I knew about your being attacked in the stairwell -"

Realization was coming, swift and painful. "It was you, wasn't it -"

Colin shrugged and smiled, looking pleased with himself. "I always heard that a murderer's downfall is usually his vanity." He added, "I shouldn't have talked so much. Hercule Poirot, you know, believed that if you talk too much, you eventually reveal the truth no matter how much you're on your guard . . ."

"Hercule Poirot." Ginny repeated, her hand going to her wand slowly, hoping to draw it - Grief for Hannah and Colin -

"Muggle detective. Fictitious, of course." Colin glanced at her. "I wouldn't touch your wand if I were you."

"How could it have been you? It wasn't human -"

Colin tsked tsked her playfully, cocking his blond head on one side. Ginny wanted to cry. Her best friend.

"You should have paid more attention to McGonagall, Ginny." Colin said, mildly reproving. "Animagi, you know. I was always quite good at Transfiguration. It was challenging, no more, to learn how to transfigure myself. Of course, I had quite a good tutor in the Dark Lord."

Ginny froze. "You're working for him?"

Colin frowned. "Well, I prefer to think of it as an apprenticeship. A necessary step while acquiring my own power."

Ginny felt nothing. She was numb. Numb. "What did you transfigure yourself into?"

He was pleased. "I'm glad you asked. It's quite unusual to have this ability, you know." He paused dramatically. "_Nothing."_

Ginny gaped. "What?"

Colin smiled widely. "Nothing. Zilch, zip, nada. Nothing at all."

"What are you talking about?"

Colin's smile disappeared. "You should be more respectful. But since you want to know, I'll explain. I transfigured myself into nothing. Emptiness. Open air. I simply wasn't _there." He frowned. "Well, not in a physical sense, anyway. In that state I'm able to impress thoughts and feelings on people." He smiled again. "I impressed fear on you."_

"How is that possible?" Ginny asked. A part of her was stalling for time, another part of her was curious. "If you're - _nothing - then how do you have the ability to do __anything?"_

"I know you're stalling for time, for someone to rescue you." Colin remarked. "Harry Potter? Or possibly Draco Malfoy - although your feelings about him are a bit confused. You might as well give up hope now, because I will kill you soon." He paused. "But your questions are interesting and I do enjoy your company." He added, "Enough to prolong its' existence for a while longer." He gestured at the ground. "Sit."

She sat. She had to think of something. "So explain."

"It's like transfiguring into an animal." Colin said, leaning against a tree. "If you transfigure into a cat like McGonagall, you take on its' abilities, like learning to see in the dark, or having better hearing. Being _nothing you take on nothing's proportions." He paused again. "'In infinite nothing there is infinite everything.' George Reme, you know. Another Muggle writer. When nothing is there, imagination runs freely. So when you are nothing, you can be everything. In a phantom sense, of course - you can't actually materialize into everything. But I find that unnecessary. The power of imagination is very strong. If strong enough, wizards have a very convenient ability to convince themselves that what isn't there actually exists."_

"I see."

"I assume you understand that I am the one who put the Imperius Curse on Hannah by now." Colin rubbed his hand absently down the tree trunk. "Being able to transfigure yourself into nothing is extremely helpful in curses of the like. I was able to insinuate myself into her mind quite easily. Poor Hannah - it was very sad for her when even you didn't believe she hadn't done it . . ."

Ginny clenched her hands. "You won't make me feel guilty."

Colin studied her. "No, I don't believe I will." He stood up from the tree trunk. "But it's of no consequence. Your death will satisfy me sufficiently."

"Why?" The question was torn from her - she couldn't stop loving this boy, this friend of hers so quickly. Pain, but she had to know if she could have done something to prevent it.

Colin seemed surprised, then amused. "Don't get maudlin, Ginny, I will find that painfully embarassing." He paused. "There is no why. I always knew I would be a great wizard, greater even than Lord Voldemort. That's why I studied Harry in first year, you know. I wanted to know this boy who had defeated the greatest wizard before me . . . doing as the Dark Lord bids now ensures me a step forward to my own destiny . . ."

"So all of it was a pretense." Ginny said bitterly. "All six years of friendship -"

Colin smiled. "Of course. I did enjoy your childish devotion to Harry Potter, though, and then your confused emotions for Malfoy - You're very passionate, you know, if not exactly wise . . ." He added thoughtfully, "I enjoyed your companionship. But it was always expendable." He lifted his wand. "You would have died long ago if I hadn't wanted to show Voldemort not to play with me. I hope you die with dignity."

"She won't die at all." 

Dumbledore's strong, gentle voice.

Ginny was full of conflicting emotions - emotions she didn't want to analyze.

Colin whipped around, and his face broke into a smile. "Dumbledore!"

"Put your wand down, Colin." 

Colin nodded obligingly. "I thought it strange you didn't have a sort of tag on the Weasleys." He dropped his wand and laughed. "But it's too late, you know. I made Potter's Firebolt into a Portkey."

Ginny's heart slammed into her stomach. _Harry.   
______

Harry jogged out onto the Quidditch pitch, his heart already pounding pleasurably at the thought of another match.

And a chance to redeem himself to his team.

He'd shown up early to warm up and give a proper pep talk. The team had appeared to have forgiven him, but he was well aware that he had to play his best this afternoon.

He jogged towards the broomstick rack, and his lips tightened. Draco Malfoy was already there, checking over his own broomstick. Harry steeled himself and told himself not to get into a confrontation. There would be plenty of time for that on the field later.

He wasn't given a choice. Malfoy looked up as he jogged near and his face automatically twisted into a sneer. "Potter." He said, by way of greeting.

Harry ignored him and looked for his Firebolt. 

"The Firebolt is there." Malfoy said with a smirk. He pointed at the end of the rack.

Harry scowled. "I see it."

Malfoy feigned surprise. "So those specs _aren't for good looks. Good thing, Potter, because I have to say, they were failing miserably."_

_Don't let him provoke you. "Shut up, Malferret."_

Malfoy just laughed, that awful irritating obnoxious laugh. "Whatever you say, Potter. I just hope those specs work today when you're watching me get the Snitch."

"I just hope you're getting therapy for that alternate reality you're living in."

Malfoy laughed again. "Whatever you say, Potter." He repeated.

Anger boiled through Harry. He grabbed his Firebolt and turned to Malfoy, opening his mouth.

Which widened in shock as he was yanked by his navel with a sudden, vicious tug. 

_____  
  


Ginny raced onto the Quidditch pitch just in time to see Harry disappear. 

She ran over to Draco, who was gazing at the spot Harry had been, looking mildly surprised, and grabbed him by the shoulders, tugging him strongly. "Let's go." She growled.

Draco quirked an unruffled eyebrow. "Where?"

Ginny was running full speed ahead, having grabbed a broom. "Your mansion. Harry's been Portkeyed to your mansion. You have to show me the way."

"Where's Dumbledore?"

"He's telling Fudge. Then he's going to the mansion. He's going to be too _late_!"

"Too late for what?"

Ginny grabbed Draco by his lapels. "Stop asking questions! Voldemort's going to _kill _Harry! We've got to _go_!"

Something flashed into his eyes, but he took his broom with agonizing slowness, as if preoccupied with something else. "Why do you care?"

Ginny was mounting her broom, and with surprising strength she managed to fling Draco about two centimeters to his broom. "Get on your broom."

He did, but he didn't allow it to fly. "Why do you care?" he repeated, and his eyes were cold.

Ginny turned and glared at him, tears welling in her eyes, hot, angry tears. "Goddamit, _fly!"_

He allowed the broom to levitate a few inches. "Why do you care?"

"Because I _love Harry!" Ginny burst out._

The broom shot into the air. "That's a switch, Weasley." Draco remarked, as he flew into the air. "Yesterday you were saying you loved _me."_

She had hurt him. Worry, regret, acid pain ripped through her stomach. She wouldn't soften, not now. She couldn't.

Not if she wanted to help Harry.

All her fault.

She should have _known._

"Just fly." Ginny said bitterly, to the figure flying rapidly through the air just ahead of her, who couldn't hear her and probably didn't want to anyway. 

_____   
  


Harry landed with an undignified _thunk! on a cold cement floor. Woozily he got to his feet and looked around unsteadily._

"Harry Potter." A sibilant hiss. "Welcome."

Harry knew that voice. "Voldemort." He turned around and faced him.

Voldemort.

Tall, lean, wrapped in robes that draped his figure like a shroud. 

"How kind of you to remember me."

Red eyes that were like cold glass marbles.

"Hardly in a good way."

Strange that there was no fear in him anymore. There was nothing to fear in the figure who stood before him. 

"Good enough." Voldemort gestured at the seat in front of him. "Have a seat. Or do you want to die quickly?"

"Only if I bring you with me."

Voldemort smiled. "I fear that that is not going to happen today."

Harry met his eyes squarely. "Then there's always tomorrow."

"Not for you, Harry Potter." Voldemort let the silence hang, then lifted his wand. "I remember how irritating I find you. I think your death will be quick. You've caused me too much trouble already."

"I apologize for the inconvenience."

"Cocky to the end. I like that. Of course, your end is so painfully near . . ."

"I guess Malfoy's not the only one living in an alternate reality."

"Time grows short. Any last words?"

"Burn in hell seems so redundant."

"And worthless. Immortality has nothing to fear."

"Ignorance is bliss."

Voldemort smiled again. "Goodbye Harry Potter."


	11. The End

****

Anthend - The End

"We're here." Draco said shortly, getting off his broom.

Ginny didn't look at him, but followed him into the house. She was vaguely surprised that there weren't any hexes on the front door. "Where is he?"

"How the hell should I know, Weasley?" Draco spat. "I'm not a Death Eater. Yet. So stop treating me like I'm the one who's threatening your Precious Potter."

A ripple of shock went through her. He'd been more hurt than she'd thought. Pain went through her. She couldn't _stand _this. "Wait."

Draco didn't stop but kept walking.

She ran up to him and took him by the arm.

He shook her off. "Get off me. I'm going to find out where your beloved Potter is."

"No. Wait." She took his arm again and turned him around. "I have to tell you."

"Tell me what, Weasley?" he blazed at her. Gray eyes, not cool, for once, but hot and angry. "Tell me that you love Potter? Tell me that you're using me so you can find him? Because I have to tell you - I already know that. So if you'll stop with the maudlin crap, I'll just go find out where he is, get him out of here and then you can both get out of my life."

"Why are you helping us then?"

"_Us, _huh?" he mocked bitterly. "I'm _helping _you because as much as I hate Potter, I'm not quite ready for him to die."

"Draco -"

"Just shut up, Weasley." Draco strode up to the wall. Ginny watched him, shivering. The mansion was cold. Draco - she watched him, his long legs strong, his face grim. She'd never met anyone quite as strong as Draco could be - not physically, but mentally. "_Opusdium!_" He snapped out, tapping his wand to the wall.

A map of Malfoy Manor appeared, glowing green and red. With shock, Ginny saw a little red dot labeled _Harry Potter_, right next to another red dot labeled _The Dark Lord._

Draco tapped the wall again and the map disappeared. "They're in the fencing room."

"Draco, wait."

"_What_, Weasley?"

"I do love Harry."

"Oh my God, what a revelation!" Draco said in mock-surprise. "Any other little secrets you'd like to fling in my face?"

"I love Harry -" Ginny repeated. She added haltingly, "But I'm in love with you."

Draco went very still. His whole body was tense, but he didn't turn around. 

"Draco -"

"Not now, Weasley." He interrupted, but his voice wasn't harsh. "We'll get back to the soap opera after we've gotten Potter out of here."

___________________

Harry rubbed his nose lightly as the Dark Lord lifted his wand. "You going to kill me now?"

Voldemort nodded, smiled and it wasn't a nice smile. "Since you seem so eager -"

"Oh, but I am." Harry said, and suddenly he wasn't relaxed or cocky, but tense and tightly coiled. His face bore a grim determination, and his lips were drawn into a taut line of white. "I've been waiting for this for a very long time."

Voldemort smiled, pleased, as suddenly Harry's wand was in his hand. "So I see. Do you think you're prepared for this, Harry Potter? Prepared for _me_?"

"I've been prepared for over a year now." Harry met Voldemort's eyes squarely, those red slits of fury. "Surprised? You shouldn't be. After Cedric's death I knew it was only a matter of time."

"Dumbledore." Voldemort hissed.

It was Harry's turn to nod. "You should have known."

"We'll see how well that old fool's training can hold up against me." Voldemort pointed his wand. "_Crucio!_"

Harry stepped neatly out of the way and flourished his wand. "Getting soft?"

This time Voldemort lifted his hands. "_Crucio!_" The curse flew out, encompassing Harry.

Harry lifted his wand. "_Balekius!"_

The curse flew back at Voldemort, who stepped out of the way, and straight at Draco and Ginny, who had just come in the door, wands drawn. 

Draco stepped out of the way and scowled. "Do you mind?"

Voldemort whirled around. Eagerness, then a chilling fury as the red eyes took in the girl by his side. "Draco Malfoy." He hissed. "What a surprise."

Draco shook his head. "Not a good one." 

Brief, furious understanding flashed. "I knew Lucius brought you up too soft."

Draco regarded Voldemort with cold, hard eyes. "It's over." He nodded at Harry. "Let's get out of here."

"No." 

Ginny gaped at Harry. "What do you mean, no? Do you want to _die_?"

Harry faced her. "I want it over."

"_Harry_ –"

Harry turned back to Voldemort. "Ready?"

"To end this ridiculous charade?" Voldemort raised his wand. "To make you scream for mercy the way your fool of a father did?_"_

"My father _never _screamed for mercy from you!" Harry was shaking, Ginny could see, and her heart clenched in terror and a guilty longing for it all to be over -

" – to make this girl cower and beg like your mother –"

"You _liar!_" Fury, debilitating fury.

"You're going to wish, Harry Potter, that you had never been born -" Lord Voldemort lifted his wand a little higher. He was already triumphant, Ginny saw, with an awful, faraway certainty. "Doesn't it feel nice, Potter, to know that your ridiculous mother died for nothing, for less than nothing – for a son who won't even be able to avenge her –"

Harry couldn't answer, he was shaking so badly.

Ginny felt, rather than saw, Draco shift beside her, tense, about to move.

But Harry stopped him. 

He lifted the arms that were trembling so hard, Ginny felt a brief, absurd alarm that he wouldn't be able to hold them up for much longer.

But he would not be cheated of his right.

"Are _you_ ready, Potter?" Voldemort smiled then, a thin, cruel smile.

A sickening, blinding fury flashed over Harry's face for a split second before it cleared, stunningly, giving way to a determined face that revealed a strength of will Ginny had not known he possessed.

As he shouted, "_Incantum Felutski!" _and the whole world fell apart, she knew, suddenly, that this boy was destined for great things, that somehow, this victory – if victory it was -was not even his greatest.

Seconds passed.

Slowly . . .

Voldemort fell to the floor, one knee crumbling beneath him, the other falling limply outwards, his hands stiff and outstretched, his wand falling to the ground. "Dumbledore." He spat out, in understanding that came too late.

His eyes closed.

Even in unconsciousness his face was hideously clenched and distorted. 

Professor Dumbledore came in the door, his face grim and satisfied. "I see you succeeded, Mr. Potter."

"I did." Harry said in a low voice. When he looked up, Ginny was surprised to see that his face was just a boy's again, limp with relief and a dawning acceptance. "I succeeded."

Ginny ran over and hugged him. "_Harry_!"

He hugged her back tightly, and Ginny realized he needed human contact, just then, needed to feel he was still alive.

That was the thing about Harry, Ginny thought. It would never be about _her_, or him needing just her. It was about being the only person there to turn to . . .

"Is it over?" Ginny asked softly, her arms tight around Harry, paradoxically, just as she was letting him go . . .

Harry held her tighter. "It's over . . ."

And Ginny realized that she wasn't sure if she'd meant Harry's fight with Voldemort or her obsession with Harry.

______________________

Ginny found Draco, several days later, lounging in what was apparently one of his favourite places to be. It was simply fitting that it was a cold, dank corner of the dungeon.

"What are you _doing _down here?" Ginny asked irritably, peering at him through several layers of darkness. "Couldn't you hang out somewhere where there's _light_? And no fungus? You know, like _normal _wizards? I've been looking for you for _ages_."

He didn't answer for a minute. "What are you doing down here, Weasley?"

"Well, I thought I'd come down and resolve this –thing between us." Ginny gestured awkwardly. "You know."

Things had changed in the last few days. Once the Dark Lord was gone – apparently Harry had been able to kill him using a curse Dumbledore had taught him. Ginny wasn't clear on the exact details, but it had something to do with Voldemort and Harry sharing a blood link. The main thing was, Ginny thought, that the Dark Lord was _finito_.

And so were the Death Eaters. Draco's father had apparently gone into hiding, but it was almost certain that the Ministry would find him out soon. Ginny got the feeling Draco wasn't too distressed about that - he still had his mother. Besides, she'd seen him smiling when he'd gotten the telegraph that his father was one of the most sought after wizards in the world.

She'd been lonely in the last few days, but she'd also had time to grieve, for both her best friends, Colin and Hannah. Colin was in Azkaban, and even though she knew that he hadn't been the Colin she loved, she still felt a wrenching pain whenever she thought of him.

Maybe one day she'd visit him in Azkaban.

__

You were always expendable.

Then again, maybe not. 

Ginny grimaced. _Expendable. _Right. She thought fleetingly of Colin's laughing face, of his eager speeches of photography and techniques. Had it all been a façade? It couldn't have been, not all of it . . .

Some of it must have been real, Ginny decided, holding tightly to the small hard knot of hope in her. Some of it, at least.

As for whether she would visit him in Azkaban . . . that lay in her future. And with Voldemort gone, the future looked a lot better than it had in years.

Maybe one day.

And for the meantime . . .

Ginny sat down, carefully not looking at him. "So." She said.

"So." Draco repeated. 

"You could help me out here a little, you know." Ginny said, but there was no real anger in her voice. She paused and stared at the dark wall ahead of her. "Isn't it time we talked?"

"I'm not stopping you, Weasley."

"I'm not the one with things to say." Ginny said gently, inexorably. "I've told you what I have to say. I'm in love with you. I don't know if it's forever, I don't know _what _my parents will say, I don't know what else I can tell you. But I have a feeling it's for a long time, and it would be nice if my feelings were reciprocated."

"Nice?" Draco went on staring at the same dark wall she was staring at. So many things –

He gave a laugh, a laugh that sounded sort of like he wasn't quite certain himself why he was laughing. "Nice." Ginny repeated quietly.

They were like that for a while, in the quiet darkness.

"Nice –" Draco said, almost wistfully. He smiled, a different smile from the mocking one he usually sported. "I think we've gone a lot beyond nice, Weasley."

Ginny said nothing.

"Yes, I'm in love with you, Weasley." Draco smiled again. "For a long, long time."

And in the darkness, while they stared at the wall, their hands crept together and they sat like that, hands held, happy to be alive and in love.

There would be time, later, for them to leave the darkness and go out together. To face a new world which was slightly scary in it's newness. To see what the future held, to forgive and forget.

But for now they were content.

THE END

****

Author's note : I know, this took an amazingly long time in coming, and I am proportionately sorry. At the same time, I'm happy its over, because even though I've got another Harry Potter fic to finish, I'm sorry to announce that my Hpfic writing days are over. The fascination with the books has come to an end, assisted by my move and how hard it is to access the Internet nowadays (For crying out loud, some of my OWN pieces are blocked by the bloody school computer. Although this security is comforting, it makes for hard fanfiction updating.). (Although, strangely enough, I'm increasingly drawn to X-Men the Movie Fanfiction now.) Thanks for all your lovely reviews (especially the latest ones – you made me feel so guilty I HAD to get off my lazy backside and finish it)

Thanks to EVERY one of my reviewers : I'm going to mention a few now, but I read EVERY single one of your reviews, and enjoyed them all, even the flames...(I particularly liked that subtle one : "I get a colossal headache everytime I read something I don't like, and I'm getting one now." .. I'm not being sarcastic or anything. I really did like it.) 

Special Thanks to

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Jenlynn – one of my first reviewers, and most valued. 

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Nettie. – always one of the first to review, and therefore always one of the first to calm the worry that no one will like the fic

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~*Ginny*~ Fellow Ginny Fan. (AND person who first got me hooked on fanfiction)

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Hype Quality reviews...ahhh, not enough can be said **hugs**

Wmlaw great reviewer, great writer as well

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Ayleeandra Another one who writes quality reviews!!

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ZONKOFRED Also one of my favourites!!

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Tessie Regular!! =) Love that

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Carrie Love that in you too..=) Regular reviews are seriously underrated

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FyreFaerieGinny See above =)

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Stardust ditto =)

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Samejima Ranmaru Thanks for the reviews =)

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Firesprite Colin seemed innocent, but he was evil inside... hehehe =)

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Erin Thanks

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Morsus Crustum I am a serious fan of your work, especially Seventeen, and your fic on ff.net WHICH as far as I know, HASNT been updated.

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Firebolt909 I really like your fics too...=)

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Lily Shouk You love this story? I LOVE your review!!

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Victory onWings =) Thanks for al your reviews.

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Belle Malfoy Love your nick

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Ying zero Thanks

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Stranger With My Face Thanks. And I'm sure you know how much I love your site.

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Lily Ayl Sehr gut? Sorry, I'm really bad at languages. =) Thanks for your reviews!! =)

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Gred Weasley YOU made me feel so guilty I HAD to rewrite!

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Dark Moon You too!! All that persistence!!

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Purple Grass Goddesses There is something to be said for short guilt trips..thanks!

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Jayna Thank you!! =)

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Altra Thank you!! =)

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Dark Knight I loved your work right from the beginning...all that delicious smut!!

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EVERYONE OVER AT www.geocities.com.dracoginny** (which I haven't visited in far too long)**

And everyone else who I've forgotten, I'm sorry, but school computer, y'know. I loved all of your reviews and hope this last piece is worth it. =) Long live fanfiction!

And last, but certainly not least, my beta, the talented and well-critical **Static**, who helped me make SOMETHING of this last HP piece!!! (And every single other piece she has betaed for me!) (Keep in mind though, I will probably finish off my other fic at the dracoginny site sometime in the far away future!) 

THANKS


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